


No Stars to Wish On

by Marzipan77



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Disability, Friendship, Gen, Major Character Injury, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 11:31:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 42,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5162303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marzipan77/pseuds/Marzipan77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exploring the galaxy is not safe. Injuries bring pain, sorrow, and guilt, not just for the one wounded. And blame - no matter where it's directed - can break the best of friendships, of families.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set between Beneath the Surface and Point of No Return in Season 4. It deals with real-to-life injuries, guilt, and consequences. The injuries are based on actual injuries incurred by a family member.
> 
> Check out the book cover created by eilidh17 here: http://40.media.tumblr.com/1b3cbb1bf17b0a9d616c3a755d444832/tumblr_nxg0vyAUCH1qeo0l1o1_1280.png
> 
> This new story was written and illustrated for the Summer of Stargate Big Bang 2015. I'll be posting here chapter by chapter. Check it out over on Live Journal. There will be more fics throughout the month of November to enjoy. http://stargate-summer.livejournal.com/
> 
> Many hugs and chocolate Daniels to iiiionly and darcy for reading, commenting, cheerleading and pointing me in the right direction. Any mistakes were added in my be at the last minute just for fun.

“When you live in a city with no stars to wish on, you have to wish on each other.”  
― Francesca Lia Block, Love Magick

Chapter 1

“ … Petrie who made the initial discovery surrounding the hieroglyphic language. But, until 1994, there was no understanding of the vowel sounds, of how the words of Ancient Egypt could be put together into a living language. Our initial conversations with the then slaves on Abydos was slow and awkward, but, through the patience of the native speakers, and a lot of courage in the face of Ra’s total domination and his prohibition of written language, we came to understand –"

The faint buzzing of the alarm on Daniel’s watch barely slowed him down. He touched the stud with his right hand and continued the somewhat edited version of the SGC’s knowledge of Goa’uld language, before clicking one last time on the remote that would advance the PowerPoint slide to the last page.

“By Monday,” he began, waiting through the expected groans and moans from the 19 students who were expecting a weekend off, “you will send me an audio file that includes your pronunciation of the Goa’uld words and phrases listed here. I’ve also sent them to your email addresses. You’ll note that twenty have been transliterated into phonetic English, while I’ve left ten in hieroglyphic form for you to puzzle out for yourselves.” Daniel nudged his glasses higher up on his nose. “Just don’t try to use Budge for your translation. You wouldn’t want to send your teacher any suggestions for anatomically impossible body postures this close to your final evaluations.”

A few chuckles and muttered complaints drifted towards Daniel as he shut the laptop, unhooked it from the power supply and the projector, and slipped it into his bag along with a thick notebook bound in stiff leather. The messenger bag’s strap fit snugly against his chest, the weight evenly distributed so that both of his hands were free. The headache he’d woken up with wasn’t getting any better and he closed his eyes for a moment, dredging up the words of the ancient meditation ritual that Teal’c had taught him. Tension drained from his muscles, swept down from his neck, across his shoulders, until he could almost feel it drip from the ends of his fingers. Who knew that new age – or old Jaffa, if you preferred - ‘visualizing’ would really help? All those years of exhaustion and tension headaches while he was in school, or racing to figure out some alien text, or dealing with political or military bureaucracy when he would pound aspirin and squeeze the bridge of his nose as if he could chase the pain away with more pain. He snorted. At least now, at the end of his career, when real pain had come to stay, he’d finally found some relief. 

The familiar sound of boots against the concrete floor as the students made their way out had changed. Less scuffling, fewer good-natured pushes and shoves, the Airmen and Marines were filing out in something like an orderly line with a few murmured greetings where the usual shouts should have been. Daniel must have a visitor. Someone was standing just inside the door. Someone who commanded respect. Head still bowed, Daniel let his mind slip over the most likely choices. General Hammond. Probably not. Not unless something … Daniel’s stomach tightened, the headache flaring back to life as his thoughts tangled, all of the relaxation techniques he’d learned draining away in the maelstrom. No. SG-1 was on base. Safe. He unclenched his fists and laid them flat on the podium.

Probably not Hammond, then. It could be Teal’c. But he was supposed to be training the new SG-15 in hand-to-hand today. He’d stopped in on Monday and apologized for missing their standard lunch date – unless off-world - two weeks in a row. So, not Teal’c. And not Janet. Even her weird medical sixth sense that seemed to draw her to Daniel whenever the headaches built up enough to leave Daniel panting and nauseated couldn’t be working that fast. At least, he hoped not. More solicitous poking and prodding, even in her hands that held just the right combination of gentleness and stop-complaining-mister to keep him from screaming was not something he could handle today.

It was Thursday. Escape day. Long weekend ahead, Daniel was looking forward to spending three days in his own home, touching his own things, sitting around in his underwear and eating cereal straight from the box if he wanted to. Or drinking pot after pot of coffee and staying up all night. Or sitting out on the deck, head tilted back, eyes staring up at the sun.

Light footsteps gave it away just as his head lifted and the corners of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “Hi, Sam.”

“Hey.” She laid one hand on his right arm. “How are the knuckleheads treating you?”

“Well,” he latched onto her elbow and steered them towards the door, “I haven’t noticed any ‘Kick Me’ signs on my back, but you’d better take a look.”

She chuckled and leaned behind him, checking a little too carefully.

“Nope. Everything back here looks really, really good.”

“Funny.”

“No, really. Gooood,” Sam purred.

Daniel’s laughter bounced off of the walls and floor and drove the blossoming headache back to its lair. He shoved into her with his shoulder, drawing another chuckle from his friend. “Where to?” Daniel asked as she maneuvered him towards the elevators. 

The fractional tightening of her muscles under his hand spoke loud and clear, but Daniel didn’t stop. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull back and insist on his own way. 

“I thought you might like to join the colonel and me for lunch. Since Teal’c stood you up again.” She leaned into him. “Can’t have you hiding in your office and existing solely on candy bars and coffee.”

“Don’t forget chocolate walnut cookies. Isn’t that the cliché?” Daniel put on his best mimic of Ferretti, the quintessential joking soldier. “’That Doc J. He doesn’t know enough to come in out of the rain. Couldn’t find his way to a square meal with both hands and a seeing-eye dog.’”

Poor Sam. She didn’t like it. Couldn’t stand it when he told jokes on himself. Especially now. And here she was, forced into the middle again. While Teal’c managed to keep a stoic equilibrium without limiting his friendship with either Jack or Daniel, Sam felt torn in half. Forever the diplomat, the peace-maker. The child in the family who was only trying to knit her broken siblings back together. Daniel could admire her courage and her tenacity while despairing for her at the same time. He sighed and held on a little tighter. 

“I’m happy to join you, Sam,” Daniel murmured. “And, who knows? Maybe today Jack will be willing to stay in the same room with me for more than five minutes. Miracles do happen.”

She sighed. “I wish –"

“I know.” Cool air burst against his face in a wave as the elevator doors slid open. “Me, too.”

She ushered him inside, a startled airman moving quickly out of the way as Daniel inadvertently stepped on his foot.

“Sorry, Doctor Jackson.”

Daniel turned his head and smiled. “My fault. Major Carter here,” he jerked his head to the right, “wants to make sure she gets to the blue jello before it’s all gone. It’s all she’s been talking about all day.” He shrugged. “They all taste the same to me.”

“Really? You can’t tell the difference?”

Sam seemed to need the silly banter even more than Daniel did. He blinked at her behind his glasses, face implacable. Blank. “Nope.”

She huffed. “I don’t believe you. Red tastes like cherry. Or strawberry. Yellow tastes decisively like lemon. Green is lime. And blue tastes just like the blue raspberry popsicles I used to love to get from our neighborhood ice cream truck. Honestly, Daniel, a –" she stopped. Caught her breath in a strangled gasp, her arm trembling under his steady grip.

Daniel smiled, wide and wild. Laughed. Laughed hard. Harder and longer than he had in a very long time. He heard it when Sam joined in, snickering, falling against him until they were holding each other up. Even the poor airman trapped in the small elevator car with the two crazy people couldn’t help but add in his own nervous chortling.

Finally, finding enough breath to speak, Daniel flicked the tears from his cheek with one hand and lifted his face toward her. “You’re – you’re telling me – telling me that a – a blind man could tell the difference?”

He felt Sam reach up to adjust his dark sunglasses, letting her fingers linger for a moment on the one scar just visible beneath the oversized, opaque lenses. “Even a blind man, Daniel,” she replied, her voice laced with love and laughter and regret.

“Well, then,” he managed, just as the doors slid open, “I suppose I’ll be the judge of that.”

He let her lead him into the dark corridor, down the dark hallway, past the voices and sounds of men and women who murmured a greeting or an apology and moved out of his way. Daniel could have followed his nose to the cafeteria. Or put his head down, his hands in his pockets, and let his feet walk a pathway that he knew like the back of his hand. But, here, beneath the mountain, he would never fool anyone. They all knew. They all stared. They all would have asked if they could help.

Daniel Jackson was blind. Completely, utterly, permanently blind. And he wasn’t fooling anyone.


	2. Chapter 2

Guilt was like a fire. It seared along Jack's nerves, through his blood. Bubbled up like magma in his gut. Nothing quenched it – nothing. Not logic. Not work. Not alcohol. And sure as hell not forgiveness.

People thought forgiveness should smother the flames. Pour salt or flour on the grease fire. It didn’t work that way. Daniel’s forgiveness was like kerosene. Like acid. And every time Jack saw him, took in the wraparound sunglasses, the damned white cane, let alone got close enough to glimpse his scars, the temperature of his guilt rose until it was hot enough to melt steel.

Swallowing the last swig of cold coffee, Jack knew his attitude sucked. And his behavior was worse. It wasn’t fair. Not to Daniel. Not to anyone. Crouching over the table – their table, SG-1’s table – Jack felt the inferno build again. Felt the sick dread force its way up the back of his throat.

He refused to look up.

All it had taken was the sight of the airmen and women in the commissary smiling and moving out of the way, giving up a coveted place in the chow line. That mixed with an achingly familiar sight of one blond, one sandy brown head angled close together had Jack lowering his gaze, intent on the cheap white mug in his hands as if it were his last lifeline. Carter had dragged Daniel’s butt to lunch.

Jack felt the stares, heard the quieting wave of whispers that replaced the usual dull roar. Not one voice would be accusing – blaming. Pitiful. Not even behind raised hands or muttered into a neighbor’s ear. Not while Teal’c or Carter or Dixon or Ferretti were within earshot. No – the only accusations were in Jack’s head. And the closer Daniel came, the louder those voices shouted.

Jack picked up his fork and attacked the hunk of congealing meatloaf sitting in its sludge-like gravy. Suck it up, flyboy, he snarled at his inner self. Get a grip. Get a clue. Half an hour with your former best friend and teammate won’t kill you.

“Colonel. Look who I found.”

Jack couldn’t miss the challenge in Carter’s voice. Brave woman. Never let it be said that anyone of Jack’s kids didn’t have a backbone of iron. Jack swallowed the dry meat like it was a piece of burning coal and glanced up.

“Carter. Daniel.” He slid out the chair opposite him with one foot. “Anyone seen Teal’c?”

Dammit.

“Not me,” Daniel smiled.

Jack chewed on the guilt as he watched Carter guide Daniel’s hand to the back of the chair. Watched Daniel lower his tray gingerly to the table. Watched him carefully make his movements within a kind of awareness bubble, never reaching beyond a few inches, never casually flinging out his hands to emphasize a point. Controlled. Contained.

Not Daniel.

Long fingers touched, felt around, found his napkin, fork, and spoon, and measured the distance to the plate. Jack flung his chair backwards and stood. “I’ll go find him – he’s probably –"

“Colonel-"

“No, it’s okay, Sam.”

Daniel’s exhaustion came through loud and clear and Jack couldn’t help glancing down at his friend’s face. At the grimace. The bitter smile.

“Let Jack go. Run away.” Daniel stabbed at his plate, missing everything and the fork making an earsplitting screech that stilled all the nearby voices like Jack’s abrupt actions hadn’t. “It’s not like I expected anything else.” He threw down his fork and slid backwards. “I’ll go, Jack. I’m suddenly not hungry anymore.”

“No, Daniel, please.” Carter laid one hand on Daniel’s arm and leaned forward. “This is ridiculous.” Blue eyes blazed in Jack’s direction like twin colonel-seeking missiles. “We used to be friends, sir. Teammates. Is one lunch too much to ask?”

Yes. Jack wanted to shout it to the damned rafters. Yes. It was too much to ask. For Jack to sit here and watch Daniel’s hesitant movements, watch him struggle to simply feed himself. Poke around on a plate mapped out by the catering staff into quadrants. To sit here with Daniel’s blindness staring him in the face, his blindness and the well-adjusted adaptation he’d been forced to make to every single aspect of his life because of it.

Jack set his teeth and sat back down. Fine. He raised his eyebrows at Carter’s still frosty glare. “Yeah. Okay.” He forced himself to look at Daniel. To take in the way his head was tilted to one side, listening for clues. Listening for Jack’s footsteps walking away. Again. Jack tapped his fingers restlessly on the metal table and then stopped when a tiny smile drifted across Daniel’s face.

“So. What have you been up to this morning, Carter?” For the first time since he’d met her Jack hoped Carter would trot out her latest astrophysics breakthrough and try to explain it down to the last detail.

“Not much, sir.”

Of course not. That would have been too easy.

“General Hammond called and scheduled a meeting for 13:40 – not sure what that’s about.”

Jack tore his eyes away from Daniel’s painstaking attempts at getting a piece of ravioli from his plate into his mouth and turned back to her. “Oh, yeah? He wants to see me at 15:00. Sent me a memo,” he enunciated clearly.

Daniel lost the battle with the pasta – again – and picked up his bottle of water. Water. Not coffee. No caffeine with his meds. Jack’s gut gurgled.

“You read a memo?”

“Hey – I read. Have an inbox and everything.” Just because Hammond had Harriman, the ‘gate tech, hand deliver it to Jack in the base gym didn’t mean anything. “Just because you read everything that’s not nailed down, doesn’t … fuck.” No. This. This was why. Beyond the soul-eating guilt, the hatred of everything Daniel had been forced to go through – and of himself – this was why Jack didn’t dare spend time with Daniel. His damned mouth.

“’Doesn’t fuck?’”

Daniel’s eyebrows rose above the rims of his dark glasses. One normal, inquisitive eyebrow. One peppered with nasty white scars.

“Speak for yourself there, Jack,” Daniel continued, amused.

Amused. Jack’s lips pulled back against his teeth at the blind man’s attempt at humor. “Don’t,” he seethed. It wasn’t funny. Nothing about this was funny. It would never be funny. “I’m sorry,” he blurted into the air. Sorry – brilliant, O’Neill.

“Don’t you think you’ve said ‘sorry’ to me enough, Jack? By my count, even if you count every time you ever called me a geek or a dweeb and the entire first trip to Abydos, I think you’re working off future flubs now, like ten years down the road.”

“No.”

Daniel raised his head, blind eyes tracking perfectly to meet Jack’s. “’No?’ I’m sorry –"

“No.” Jack’s whisper hit Daniel like a rifle shot. Like another damned rifle shot. He could smell the cordite, see the muzzle flash, and hear the scream. “No,” Jack growled again, swallowing bile and blood and regret, “don’t you ever, ever say you’re sorry to me, Daniel. Not ever. Not even as a joke.”

“Jack-"

“I mean it. You will never find me in the same room with you again if you try.”

“Colonel!”

Jack didn’t let himself get distracted. He knew Teal’c had arrived. He could feel the looming silence of a hungry Jaffa at his back. But now, now that he’d sat down for a minute with Daniel, had stared at his scars, at his damned careful maneuvering, he wouldn’t look away. “You hear me?”

“I hear you, Jack.”

“Good. Yeah.” Yeah. Time to step up, O’Neill. He’d been a damned coward. He should never have avoided Daniel. He should have forced himself to see – to watch – to know everything his friend was going through first hand, not through Carter and Teal’c and Frasier’s descriptions. He’d failed Daniel. Failed him in a way that he’d only ever failed one other person in his life. There was no fit punishment for that. None. Losing a friendship – that was a given. Distance wasn’t going to make that worse. No, all distance had done was save Jack from knowing the depth of Daniel’s injury. Saved him from the torture of watching a good man have his entire life destroyed.

Jack leaned back and held out one hand to take Teal’c’s extra tray – always filled with desserts – from his teammate. He set it down before him, all the time watching, watching Daniel sit, unmoving. His fingers, callused and worn from excavating, from touching the remnants of centuries old civilizations, now were poised on the edge of his tray, tracing the smooth metal back and forth like there was a hidden braille message there. Tracing meaningless patterns while his mind worked.

Jack saw it – saw the flinch when Daniel figured it out. Saw it in the white knuckled grip he had on the edge of the table as he began to push himself backwards. To rise. To leave. To take himself out of Jack’s sight. 

Jack lunged forward and grabbed the edge of Daniel’s sleeve. “Where ya going?”

“I’m sor-" Daniel took a deep breath. “I should have realized.” He yanked his arm away from Jack’s grip. “I’m going to … go. Thanks for the lunch invitation. I think it’s easier for everyone if I eat in my office.”

“Daniel Jackson, I will accompany…”

“Sit down,” Jack snapped.

The blind man had his white cane in his hand before Jack could finish. The other hand rose to ward off his teammates’ intentions. Daniel tipped his head in Jack’s direction.

“No. I won’t let you use my presence, my scars, to torture yourself. I won’t do it. You all know where to find me if you want to talk, but don’t come by to say ‘I’m sorry’ one more time or to punish yourself, because, and I’ll say it again, this,” he pointed to sightless eyes hidden behind dark lenses, “was not your fault.”

The commissary had quieted again, that diminishing wave of sound following Daniel’s slow steps. Jack watched. Kept watching until his friend, his blind friend, turned the corner. Then he bent over his tray and finished his lunch.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beautiful artwork to go with this chapter by eilidh17 can be found at: http://36.media.tumblr.com/a3a0f1f9c3d5ac9b2e104de15ced7620/tumblr_nxg0vyAUCH1qeo0l1o4_1280.png

Daniel locked his fingers together behind his neck, his eyes closed tight, chin against his chest. The headache beat like an inside out drum, each metal pellet remaining in his bone and tissue seeming to throb against skin pulled tight over his skull.

Janet and the eye specialist, Middleton, had removed some of the tiny metal projectiles, but not all of them. Hadn’t even tried for the ones sunk deepest, plunging through bone and cartilage and sclera. Too dangerous, Janet had told him, the slight quiver in her voice Daniel’s first clue that this injury, this infirmary stay, would be the one. The one that wouldn’t result in a few weeks of boredom, some chocolate walnut cookies, and then a return to normalcy. Half-drugged, face and chest thick with bandages, the smell of blood and gunpowder in his nose, Daniel knew. He heard it in the silences and felt it in the touch of Sam’s trembling fingers.

Eight months. It had been eight months. It felt like yesterday and eight years ago at the same time.

What he remembered most about the days PD, or Pre-Darkness, was the exhaustion. They’d been tired. Bone tired. All of them. Run ragged by new threats and old failures. Replicators. The Tok’ra. Enkarans and Gadmeer. A time loop. Imprinted personalities that loathed one another. Arguments had cut ties of friendship, leaving them all a little jaded and a lot resentful.

And then the universe had bounced them out of the Stargate and straight into hope. A new world without Goa’uld, without hidden enemies, or frightening agendas. They’d stepped out onto PCR-787 with dragging steps and faltering camaraderie to be welcomed with unfeigned smiles and easy friendship.

They’d stayed a month. Maybe that had been the problem. They’d stayed beyond negotiations and artifact discovery, beyond the need to collect samples or chart the inhabitants’ history. They’d turned it into a vacation. Relaxed their guard. Ignored protocols. Gave each other the space to explore their own interests and recharge. Hunting and fishing for Jack. Primitive technological development for Sam. Teal’c helped train the young men in hand-to-hand, setting up a round robin wrestling tournament that went a long way towards deflating egos and reducing the number of harmful brawls among teens who just needed to blow off steam.

Daniel had learned homesteading, working shoulder to shoulder with men and women who were moving away from the large, settled communities to carve out a piece of land for themselves and their families. He’d tanned hides and dug fence posts and herded the animals that resembled double-jointed cows. Honest work done under a warm sun that left him tired in a completely different – and welcome – way. The labor had allowed Daniel’s mind freedom to process, to file away his disappointments and disagreements into their proper slots and let them go. To let the ache of muscle, the weariness of arms and legs and back to defeat the weariness of his spirit.

It had been working. Before he’d set off with Enapay and his homesteaders, he’d been able to look Jack in the eye again. To nudge and smile with Sam. To tame the dreaded eyebrow of a former First Prime.

Daniel felt his smile falter. They’d all forgotten that enemies don’t always come with glowing eyes and high-tech ships. That danger didn’t need a strategic plan or an ego or an ax to grind, language or higher thought. Sometimes it came with teeth and claws.

Tap tap tap tap. Air moved against his skin. The ting and slide of metal and plastic announced her. Janet. Hurrying. Carrying a tray of instruments and vials.

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, Daniel. SG-5 seems to trip over every single species of poisonous plant, animal, and airborne particle out there in the galaxy.”

The snap of gloves. A tug on the sheet. Janet had learned to broadcast her movements to make sure Daniel was ready to be touched. She laid one small hand on his arm.

“What was it this time?” he asked, lowering his arms at her unspoken request. “Boils? Rashes? Lice?” He chuckled. “Rain of frogs?”

A puff of breath against his cheek was her laughter. “Not quite that bad.” She tsked, fingers lightly pressing, prodding, tilting Daniel’s face – towards the light, he assumed. “Colonel Ames and his big strong men might think otherwise. Apparently, just a few clicks in and their eyes started watering – I’m talking waterfalls.” One finger touched a sore spot just below Daniel’s left eye and he flinched.

“Sorry,” she murmured, moving on. “But watching SG-5 falling through the ‘gate, crying like little boys, snot running-"

“Okay,” Daniel interrupted brightly, “mental picture snapped, thank you very much.”

“You asked,” Janet taunted. Blood pressure cuff squeezed, the cold stethoscope against the crook of his elbow was Daniel’s next cue to be still and quiet. The tone of Janet’s ‘um-hm’ announced more tests in Daniel’s near future.

She finally signaled the end of the exam with one hand on his shoulder. “One to ten.”

Daniel knew better than to fib- you don’t fib to your doctor. That lesson had been learned during the appendix episode. And these days, well, why bother? It’s not like an honest answer was going to bench him, kick him off SG-1, or keep him from going through the ‘gate. Ship sailed.

“Eight,” he sighed. “Maybe eight point five.” The headache was more than an ache, slightly less than the feeling of unexploded ordinance pounding out a countdown in his brain.

“No wonder your blood pressure is a little high.” Fingers found his pulse and then settled in, connecting them through her light touch.

“I hate to repeat myself, but,” she began.

Daniel could fill in the blanks well enough himself. “But I’m already at the high end of my pain meds – meds that allow me to function at a level just above that glazed zombie foot shuffle. And it might be just another pellet working its way to the surface, so I could ride it out. Or…” he couldn’t say it. Couldn’t speak the words out loud.

“I know. It’s hard. Hard to imagine allowing it. Planning for it. Hard to let go.” Janet leaned in, one hand circling his wrist, the other flat against his knee.

Daniel shook his head. “How – how can I give up my last hope? Give up ever finding a way to –" He swallowed anger and tears and every biting denial that swam through his head.

“A miracle, Daniel. You’re talking about finding a miracle.”

“I’ve seen miracles, Janet. And so have you. Healing devices and sarcophaguses and superior technology. Why not now?” The desperation rose up like a black wave, aimed and fired, eager to swamp him. It was made of equal parts pain, loss, the grief of his blindness, and the emptiness at his side where Jack had always been. He heard it in his voice, felt it in the echoing darkness. “Why not me?”

The silence beat back at him, rough against the open scars, the colorless wounds on his face, the peppered orbs that used to be blue and white and now had turned into murky pools of brown and red. Muddy. Stagnant. Dead. They’d told him. Explained the damage. He’d drawn his own pictures.

“You’re right. The very next trip through the Stargate might yield the right medical device to heal your eyes. To give you back what you’ve lost. But,” she hurried on, “today you’re in pain. Yesterday you were in pain. Tomorrow, that is unlikely to change. It’s a pain that is draining away the life you could have now. A pain that is treatable.”

Daniel dropped his head. “If you remove my eyes.”

“We should have done it – I should have done it – when you were first injured. If I had-"

Bloody hands. The shrill cry of dying animals. Daniel’s own gasping keen a harsh counterpoint. The left side of his face and chest burning, searing, white-hot. Nose broken. Cheekbone fractured. His right eye was barely scratched, the pooling blood from other wounds turning everything a dull red. Later, the light had drained away. Later, after surgery, Middleton had laid it all out. Sympathetic ophthalmia. The ruptured left eye had leaked proteins into his blood that had stolen the last of his vision from his right eye. If they’d removed the left orb. Taken it out immediately … 

“No.” He grabbed at her hand, fumbling, even though he knew exactly where she was. “No. It wasn’t your fault.” He squeezed, his hand feeling like a big, unwieldy paw wrapped around her slender fingers. “Not Jack’s fault, not your fault. Please.” Don’t make me talk you out of this guilt every time. Don’t make me the healer of your wounds, when I can’t handle my own. He didn’t say it, kept his mouth closed as he couldn’t with Jack. It wouldn’t help. Didn’t help. Obviously.

She waited, her hand gripping him back, hard. Nothing urgent or demanding, just friendship. Care. His decision, she was telling him. Only his.

“I’ll think about it.”

He heard the soft sigh, could paint in the worry lines, the shadows beneath her eyes. “You will? You really will?”

“Yes.” Maybe it was time. Time for the next step. To give up the dream that somewhere they’d find a way to heal him, to bring back what he’d lost. Time to close that door one final time so he could go forward. “Call Middleton in for an exam. If the pros outnumber the cons …”

“I will. I’ll make the call today.”

“Okay,” Daniel breathed.

She must have heard it in his voice, saw something in the scarred planes of his face.

“Daniel-"

He shook his head, throat closing on what had been his usual insistence. He wasn’t fine. He hadn’t been fine for quite a while. No matter how well he ‘coped’ or what a calm, accepting face he put on for the world, for his friends, his teammates, the people of the SGC, it hurt. And with this last wish, this last wisp of hope floating out of reach, far, far out of sight, he might just be broken.


	4. Chapter 4

Jack jogged up the last few stairs to the control room, waving away the little sergeant’s explanation of SG-11’s current predicament. He flipped off the cover of his watch, grimacing. Hammond expected him in five minutes for whatever these ‘secret’ meetings he’d ordered for the members of SG-1 were about.

Motioning to Harriman to cut off the base alarms, Jack leaned down to speak directly into the microphone that would carry his extremely irritated voice to PF-bumfucknowhere. “This had better be important, Major Godwin. Uncle Sam doesn’t appreciate all these ‘unscheduled incoming wormholes,’ you know. Makes the electric bill skyrocket.”

The MALP image cleared and Jack blinked, eyebrows lifting high.

“Yes, sir,” Godwin replied evenly, his mouth set in a perpetual smirk. “Just checking in a bit early to send through some presents for Doctor Jackson.”

“What, you’ve got a pretty floral bonnet made just for him?” Jack shoved his hands into his pockets, leaning back to take it all in. SG-11 had met with some nice people out there who specialized in lovely floral headdresses and, apparently, insisted that each team member show his off to their friends back home. Godwin was pulling it off without a single twitch, a cascade of pink petals setting off the man’s dark sin to perfection. Captain Williams, however, 6’5” and 285 pounds of visible fury just over Godwin’s shoulder, looked like he was seconds away from grabbing off his lemon yellow daisies and shoving them down someone’s throat.

Funny. Williams’ attitude reminded Jack of his own frustration when they’d met a certain twig-haired bunch of intergalactic hippies way back at the beginning of this program. Small, seemingly harmless people who spent all their time collecting acorns and denouncing weapons of all kinds. Yeah, right. Turned out they’d been hiding some pretty powerful stuff under those gnarled mops.

Time to make that point to the amused major. “I’ll say two words, Godwin. ‘The Nox.’ Do you read me, Major?”

He saw the spark in Godwin’s eye. “Yes, sir. Understood.” He gestured towards a couple of wooden crates that were leaking prickly strands of straw. “The reason we checked in early, sir, is because a big storm is brewing here, and once our new friends found out that we might have someone back home who could read their ‘ancestors’ tablets,’ everybody here got very excited.”

Jack clenched his teeth, swallowing the curses that tried to leap out at the man. “Just how the-"

Godwin held up a squarish piece of grey rock. “The words are inscribed, sir. Carved pretty deep. I thought Doctor Jackson might want to check them out?”

“Fine. Send them through.” Jack wiped one hand across his face. “Storm or no storm, check back in in six hours, Godwin.” He held up one finger as if the man across the wormhole could see him. “I mean it. Keep your people safe. You know what assumptions make.”

Harriman raised his eyes towards Jack’s as he gave the orders for the crates to be shipped upstairs and the wormhole shut down. “An ass out of you and me?”

“No, sergeant. Assumptions make you dead.” Or worse, Jack thought to himself as he turned his back and jogged up the stairs.

A year ago, Daniel would have been standing at Jack’s side for every off-world activation. Translating on the fly, figuring out the cultures with just a couple of chicken scratches and a peek at their wardrobe, jabbering away about Sumerian or Etruscan or Pig Latin for all Jack knew.

Not anymore. Sure, Daniel’s fingers were sensitive and he’d learned braille in record time – just another language to put under the man’s belt. But feeling up some stone tablets wasn’t the same as taking one look at an alien language and looking up at Jack with that gleam in his eye. Now Daniel’s eyes were dark lumps in a scarred face, useful only for giving him pain. Pain, plus the constant reminder to Daniel, Jack, and everyone who could see them of Jack’s failure.

He caught the glint of blond hair through the window to Hammond’s office as he headed up the last few steps. Carter. Standing at ease in front of the general’s desk. Weird, Jack thought. That was a pretty formal stance – not Hammond’s usual style. Huh. Staring at his teammate’s stiff back, it took Jack a few seconds to realize that he wasn’t alone in the briefing room. A uniformed man was seated at the table, a neat pile of reports at his right hand.

“Major Davis?”

Davis rose quickly to his feet, chin up and shoulders back. “Colonel O’Neill. Sorry, sir, I didn’t hear you come in.”

Jack plastered a bland expression across his face, his gut churning uneasily. “Unsnap your backbone, Major, before you hurt yourself.” Eyes narrowed, he scanned the pages laid open on the table. “I didn’t realize the Pentagon had a field trip planned for today. And who, exactly, do we have on the tour this time?” God help them all if it was Kinsey. Jack was in the perfect mood to send the not-so-good senator through the nearest wormhole, ass first.

“Just me, sir.” Davis smiled. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Huh.” Jack’s mind hurried through possible explanations and came up empty. “Missed the memo again, apparently.”

Davis’ gaze shifted to somewhere over Jack’s left shoulder. “You’ll have to ask General Hammond about that, sir.”

Curiouser and curiouser. Before Jack could carelessly saunter closer to Davis’ chair to try to get a clue, Hammond’s office door opened.

“Thank you, Major Carter. I’ll be in touch with the schedule.”

Holy- Jack stumbled to a halt. Carter’s face was pale as bone, skin pulled tight, her eyes rimmed with red. Crying? No way. Carter didn’t cry. Hell, Teal’c cried more often than Carter did. 

“Yes, sir.”

Well her voice was low and controlled, but it didn’t tremble. There was no sobbing or gasping or any other of the ridiculous stereotypes about women and tears. Jack’s gaze flicked between his teammate’s and his CO’s. Hammond – controlled, stern, every inch a general. Carter – absolutely stunned and completely unable to cover it with her usual mask of professionalism.  
“General?”

“I’ll be with you in a moment, Colonel. Please wait in my office.”

Carter wouldn’t even look up to meet his eyes as he moved past – which was so not a good sign. Not to mention the fact that Hammond leaned in and slid his door closed in Jack’s face as he turned around, making doubly sure that the two members of SG-1 would not be comparing any notes whatsoever.

Okay. Fine. Pentagon paper-pusher Davis. Private interviews with each current member of SG-1. An obviously finely timed set of interviews, he might add, making sure that there wouldn’t be any loose talk among the team. Put those clues together and what did Jack get? He fingered the wing-spread eagle that sat on the edge of Hammond’s desk. Squat. Nada. As usual, the clue bus had missed Jack’s stop altogether.

Hammond didn’t take long. Not long enough for Jack to do any damage, anyway. Small mercies.

“Colonel O’Neill.”

Jack’s back straightened – the ingrained reflex of a lifetime. It was like when your mama used your full name when she called you. When Hammond stuck the ‘O’Neill’ onto his rank something was up. Add that to Pentagon Paul’s presence in the briefing room and …

“General.”

Hammond closed the door and took his place behind his desk. Scratch that. O’Neill raised one eyebrow. Hammond stood behind his desk. Composed. Calm. And very, very concerned.

“Major Davis is here because some questions have been raised. Some questions about SG-1.”

Political bureaucracy strikes again. “Has someone in Washington misplaced some beans again, sir?” Because Jack did not care one hill of them what spit and polish Davis had to say about much of anything.

“I would take this seriously if I were you, Colonel.” Hammond’s voice was quiet. Dangerously quiet. “We don’t have time for jokes or stonewalling if we want to get in front of this. And, frankly, I don’t find the situation lends itself much to laughing.”

Jack waited, stone-faced. This wasn’t military posturing – Hammond did damn little of that on his worst day. This wasn’t a circle the wagons meeting either. Us vs. Them. SGC vs. All comers. This was different. Not even when the NID had threatened his grandchildren had Hammond scared Jack as much as he did now.

After a moment, the general seemed to deflate, his point made, his troublesome 2IC reined in. He motioned Jack to a chair and sat down.

“Since SG-1’s mission to PCR-787, someone has made it his job to keep a concerned eye on the SGC, Doctor Jackson, and SG-1 in particular.”

It felt like Jack had taken a red-hot poker to the gut. His lungs seized, his muscles clenched, and his vision tunneled to eliminate everything but Hammond’s face - the dark shadows swallowing up his eyes, the grim line of his mouth. Whatever the general said as a follow-up was lost in the white noise suffocating Jack’s brain. Finally. Finally. That one word rang through his head with the finality of a prison door clanging shut.

“Are you listening to me, Colonel O’Neill?”

“Yes, sir.” Jack cleared his throat and leaned forward in his chair, fingers laced tightly together. It should have happened long ago. Eight months. Eight damn months and nothing – no inquiries, no disciplinary action. Daniel had been blind for nearly a year and the higher ups had just now noticed, apparently. Well, he blew out a breath, at least now they’d do it. Dig into the story. Find out who was at fault. And act.

“I assume SG-1 is not to communicate before our statements.” That explained Carter’s demeanor. She knew what was coming. She knew who would be under the slow-falling axe of the higher ups. Jack nearly smiled. She was a scrapper, and, even if he would never say it out loud in her hearing, more protectively violent than a mama bear with her cubs. Even of her CO. Even knowing what he’d done. And who he’d done it to.

“You assume correctly, Colonel. And, this time,” Hammond pointed one finger and brought it down to his desk in the perfect ballistic arc of a falling bomb, “I expect your complete and utter cooperation.”

“Understood, sir.”

“I mean it, Colonel O’Neill.”

Jack rose, the weight that had been grinding him steadily into the ground for the past eight months lifting off his shoulders. “General Hammond, I intend to cooperate fully with the investigation. In fact, if I may speak freely, sir –" He hesitated.

Hammond’s eyes narrowed, scanning Jack for any signs of his usual sarcasm, apparently. He finally nodded.

“… it’s about damned time, sir.”

The general’s expression didn’t clear. In fact, if anything, he looked even more wound up than he had at the beginning of this little interview. Figured, Jack nodded to himself. As much as things had changed at the SGC in the past eight months, the court martial and imprisonment of their 2IC might just tear the place down around Hammond’s ears.

No time like the present. Jack forced himself to stand that much straighter. “I’m sorry, sir. Sorry it’s come to this.”

“Not as sorry as I am, Colonel.”

Jack very much doubted that. “I’d like to take a few days, sir. Get things in order.” Get the hell out of the mountain and away from his team. He didn’t need to get Carter or Teal’c reprimanded when they tried to go behind Hammond’s back and come up with a some damned strategy to handle this. There was no strategy for this. There was the truth and its consequences and nothing else. And he wouldn’t let them go down with him.

“Good idea.” Hammond nodded. “I have made it plain to Major Carter and Teal’c that there will be no collusion of any kind between the members of SG-1. It will not be tolerated. No contact, Colonel.”

A flicker of sorrow. A taste of loss on the back of his tongue. Jack would miss this place. Miss his team. He swallowed, his throat dry. He’d miss Daniel and their difficult, miles-deep friendship. He already did. He frowned. “Sir? What about Daniel?”

He couldn’t quite put an adjective to Hammond’s darkened expression. “I will do everything in my power to shield Doctor Jackson from the worst of this, Colonel. You have my word on it.”

“Good. Thank you, sir.” Because Daniel was going to hate this. With every fiber of his being.

“Dismissed, Colonel.”

Jack snapped smartly to attention as Hammond rose ponderously from the chair, weight of the world on his shoulders. The weight of many worlds, actually. Their eyes locked, Jack wondering, again, what to make of the silent stare of the man in front of him. Just before he turned to leave, to take that long walk to the gear-up room for, maybe, the last time, Hammond surprised him.

“Now I want a promise from you, Jack. Not from the Colonel to the General, from Jack to George.”

“Anything.” Jack was being honest. For this man, a man he respected more than any commanding officer he’d ever served with, a man who’d seen him at his best and at his worst, who’d have done everything he could have to avoid any interference from Washington, from the president himself. “Just name, it.”

“Don’t do anything … final, Jack. Get your head together and then keep it down. I expect to see you right here, Monday morning, 08:00, spit and polished. Understood?”

Three days. It have him three days to … to do what he needed to do. Set things in motion. Jack didn’t let himself look away from Hammond’s fierce glare and nodded. “Heard and understood, sir.” Nothing final. No, those dark days were long gone, buried under a new lease on life a long-haired, sneezing geek had given one hard-assed, suicidal Jack O’Neill. He wouldn’t give that burden to his team, to George Hammond, or to Daniel to hang on his back for the rest of his life. Whatever the Air Force decided to do with him was just fine.

Davis had made himself scarce when Jack walked back through the briefing room, his step a bit lighter, if he was honest with himself. For one brief instant, Jack almost felt sorry for the guy.


	5. Chapter 5

Daniel’s fingers traced lightly over the tablet he and Nyan had just unearthed from the fourth crate SG-11 had shipped through the ‘gate from PRJ-599. Four crates of tablets, lovingly preserved and packed by the people who called that world their home. A treasure trove. He shook his head, a smile teasing its way across his lips. It had been a long time since he’d felt this joy, this surge of excitement that started somewhere near his toes and leaped up to lodge firmly in his chest. And by the sound of Nyan’s comments, his assistant was feeling the same thing.

“I’ve labeled each tablet, Doctor Jackson, stating the planet designation, the SG team and scientist who retrieved them, the date and time, and then, in order of unpacking from crate one to four and then clockwise from the upper left corner, eight tablets per crate, thirty-two in total.” 

The soft-spoken refugee’s words were fast and a little loud, but Daniel had no intention of stifling Nyan’s enthusiasm.

“I’ll take them down to the lab and print out the braille tags to attach to the backs of those I’ve written out, here. I’m sure I can be back within fifteen minutes…”

“Nyan, take a breath,” Daniel chuckled. “And just how many more years is it going to take for you to call me Daniel? You called me Daniel back on your home planet, but it sure didn’t stick.” He held the tablet between his palms, the tips of his fingers curling over its uneven end. He felt its weight, its texture, imagining the striations of the rock, the coloring in his mind’s eye shading from black to grey to sandy until it settled on a mottled red. Nyan had worked at Daniel’s side since he’d recovered from his injuries – he knew exactly what information Daniel wanted and what he wanted a chance to imagine for himself. “Make sure to notify the geology department so that they can come up here and take a sample. A small sample,” he warned. 

Soon enough all of the scientific minds would be clamoring for time with the tablets. Sending airmen and civilians up here to try to sneak one away, figuring slipping a fast one past the blind man shouldn’t be too hard. Daniel smiled to himself. Short of attaching a GPS chip to each one or stationing Nyan in the doorway with orders to pat down anyone “just coming up for a visit,” Daniel probably couldn’t stop them. However, inviting a certain physically intimidating, soul-soothing ex-teammate to hang out with him for a few days would definitely do the trick. Yep. Tomorrow would be the perfect day to catch up with Teal’c. He’d been hinting about learning braille notation – what better time than the present?

Daniel dropped his chin to his chest and sighed. 

“Doctor – Daniel?”

He heard his assistant’s concern, the scuff of his boot against the concrete floor.

“It’s nothing.” He held the tablet against his chest. “Just wishing.” Wishing he didn’t have to rely on others to tell him about this world and these people. Wishing he could have been with the team to visit them, to hear their language and watch for all of the tiny hints that would define their civilization. Wishing he wasn’t grounded, that he could feel the rush of excitement as he stepped through the Stargate, the sensation as his molecules were pulled apart and put back together. Wishing he could experience that first breath of air on an alien world, the feel of two suns on his face. Wishing.

“I am sorry, Doctor Jackson.”

Daniel shook his head, still cradling the carved rock close. “No. I’m sorry, Nyan. Sometimes …” Sometimes it was hard. Hard being the well-adjusted one. The strong one. The one who didn’t fall apart, who didn’t slip into depression or rage because of all the ‘wishes’ that would never come true. He forced a smile in his assistant’s direction. “Sometimes I forget that I can’t hoard these all up like a miser and take all the time in the world to study. That we’re fighting for our lives out there.”

“Doctor Lee and Major Carter will definitely be interested. As well as Captain Craig.”

The tablets would be scanned, studied, checked for the smallest microbe, and probably sent through the MRI and irradiation chamber just to be triply sure. Daniel didn’t have a choice – and, on another day, wouldn’t have it any other way. Today his argument with Jack and his conversation with Janet had poked some holes in his steady resolve and he wanted nothing more than to hold onto this discovery just as long as he could, keeping the image he’d created behind the darkness of his eyes. He didn’t want to open his email, hook up the speech synthesizer, and find out the simplest things about these tablets from others. Color, composition, iridescence, striation. The depth of the glyphs down to one one-hundredth of an inch and the tools likely used to incise them. 

He let his fingertips linger on the smooth arcs and straight lines laid out in even columns. Not Goa’uld. Not Ancient. Not Asgard. Not Sumerian or Chinese or Greek. Most similar in form to cuneiform. And, if Daniel wasn’t mistaken, utterly alien. A new language – at least to him. The beauty and wonder of this discovery should not be summed up in dry, scientific language parsed through an inhuman voice vibrating through a speaker box.

“You guys planning to work all night?”

Daniel’s head snapped up and turned towards the doorway. Funny, even now it was an automatic response. 

“Paul?”

“Hey, pretty good. I, uh, I wasn’t sure if you’d …”

Daniel smiled and stood, stretching his cramped legs slowly, setting the tablet down – reluctantly – on the steel work table to his right. He blinked a few times – a habit he’d had since he was a child, a way to change gears, to break up a stream of thought he had been ultra-focused on – and only then registered Paul’s shocked breath and sudden stillness. 

He closed his eyes. It was always harder the first time. The first encounter with someone since his injury. Apparently, Daniel’s sightless face was … unsettling. He wished he’d kept his dark sunglasses on, but the feel of them pressing against his temples was just too much to bear today. And Nyan was such a calm, soothing presence, Daniel had forgotten all of his armor, every layer he usually propped up between himself and anyone who casually stopped by. He fumbled at his breast pocket and then remembered that he’d left them on his desk. Keep your eyes closed, he reminded himself. 

“It’s been a while,” Daniel took up the slack in the stuttering conversation. “Are you just paying a courtesy visit or have you come down to play ‘map the squiggle’ with us?”

Paul’s quiet laughter was much better than his halting greeting. “I wouldn’t want to spoil all your fun.” His hard soled dress shoes rang sharply against the floor. “But, in case you’ve missed it, it’s almost four o’clock. I was just wondering if you’d like to join me for dinner. Somewhere off base, out in the real world.”

Daniel tracked the Air Force major as he moved closer, side-stepping what must be haphazard piles of straw and the strewn parts of packing crates. Nyan shifted uneasily on Daniel’s right.

“Wow, I haven’t had an invitation like that in … far too long.” Daniel’s hand tightened on rounded lip of the work table, suddenly afraid that, if he took Paul up on his offer, if he left his office now he might never have a chance to study these tablets. He shook his head. That was ridiculous. Still… “Can you give me about an hour – hour and a half – to get this squared away?” He gestured vaguely.

“Yeah, looks like quite a find. Should keep you busy for, I don’t know, fifteen minutes?”

“Such a funny guy,” Daniel chuckled. “Careful, or I’ll put you to work scanning and cataloguing.” He pointed one finger towards Paul’s chest. “Don’t think I don’t remember our discussions about your undergraduate work at the FDR Library in New York.”

“You were the one plying Air Force officers with good Russian vodka.” Paul clucked his tongue. “You’re too innocent looking for my own good, Daniel.”

“That’s just what Jack used to say.” The stab of pain in his chest at the loss of that deep, defining friendship would never be comfortable. “So, do you mind waiting? Or we could do dinner tomorrow if you’re still in town.”

“How about I meet you back here at 18:00? That will give you some time to revel in your artifacts before I pull you away.” 

Daniel nodded, his brow creasing. “Great. Good. I’ll see you then.”

Oops. Daniel wondered if Paul flinched at his awkward wording. He knew Sam had gotten over the worst of the knee-jerk reactions to simple idioms like that one, but that Jack was likely to turn silent and deadly if he spoke so lightly of his injury.

“Excellent.” Two knocks against the metal frame told Daniel that Paul had turned back to the door. “I’ll be back. And you can catch me up on all the gossip.”

“Paul. Hang on.” Daniel turned towards the stillness where he knew his assistant stood. “Nyan, go ahead and do the labeling. I just want to make some notes before we start scanning.”

“Of course. I’ll return shortly.”

The slight alien excused himself and hurried off. Hoping that Paul hadn’t followed him, Daniel made his way carefully towards his desk, feeling around the floor with his booted toes to avoid trampling anything important. Once he’d reached his target, he fumbled for his sunglasses and set them on his nose, the sidepieces seeming to attach themselves to his head with red-hot pinchers. Braced and guarded, he took a deep breath and faced the doorway again.

“Is there something going on, Paul? Something I should know about?”

Paul sighed. “The short answer is yes, yes there is. And I am going to tell you about it. But I’d really like to do it away from the SGC if you don’t mind. I know, I know,” Daniel could practically see the man’s hands raised in a warding off gesture, “you’re not going to be able to stop your mind from whirling with crazy scenarios. But, please, Daniel. Trust me. I’ll tell you everything at dinner.”

Over the years Paul Davis had changed from a uniformed bureaucrat to a friend. He and Daniel had worked together in the background on many projects – from diplomacy to replicators. And Daniel had found a real human being beneath the dress blues. A career officer, sure, intent on climbing the ladder towards the stratosphere in Washington. But Paul also had a nasty dark wit and a way of seeing things from perspectives Daniel had never considered.

Daniel tilted his head to one side, considering. Even with orders from on high that had been difficult to swallow, even with the Air Force and Pentagon at his back, Paul had never lied to him.

“Okay,” Daniel finally agreed, “I’ll be expecting you at six. And expecting answers at six thirty.”

“Fair enough.” 

Paul’s voice was low and even – concerned but not apologetic. Daniel hoped he would be able to tell if the man had earth-shattering news without the visual clues he’d grown used to in his sighted lifetime. The officer sounded tense. Hesitant. Daniel definitely detected the strain in Paul’s voice. But he didn’t sound frantic or outraged. He clenched his teeth, heedless of the worsening headache. What he wouldn’t give to be able to read that truth in his friend’s eyes.

“Fine,” Daniel sighed. “Now get out of here. I have squiggles to map.”

Paul’s soft good-bye chased Daniel back to his work.


	6. Chapter 6

Teal’c closed the door firmly behind him, laying one hand flat against the solid metal surface as if he could draw in its latent strength. Another unsuccessful Kelnoreem last night had left him unsettled, the symbiote within him restless. As restless as Teal’c found himself. He couldn’t remain within the small room he had come to call his home among the warriors of the SGC this afternoon nor take pleasure in the pursuits of reading or observing movies. Such simple enjoyments had turned to dust, giving space for his mind to wrestle with unfruitful worries. Instead he often found himself wandering the web of corridors cut into the mountain, searching for … something. Something he could not define.

Perhaps he sought a hallway that would lead him back in time. That would place him between Daniel Jackson and the weapon that had stolen his sight. Or perhaps he should seek to go farther backwards to insist his team – his family – work out their minor differences before silence and hurt could begin to tear them apart. Or, more likely still, Teal’c simply walked the hallways in preparation for his true journey – a journey that would lead him through the Stargate and away from this place and these people. Somehow his aimless stalking always brought him here – to the level of Daniel Jackson’s office. To wander near his brother, guarding, wary of danger, even though his vigilance came far too late.

The tension among his friends and warrior brothers over the past months had frayed his confidence – not in the people themselves, not in O’Neill or Major Carter or Daniel Jackson – but in the rightness of Teal’c’s decision to place the war against the Goa’uld and the future of the Jaffa in their hands. 

Master Bra’tac may have been right. He had insisted, more than once, that the human warriors of the Tau’ri were too fragile, too weak in body and spirit to sustain the fight against the Goa’uld. Short-lived and fragmented into many tribes and nations, without the longevity or history of the Jaffa, they relied on their ingenuity, their technology, and the arrogant philosophy that nothing was beyond their control. And yet these men and women had fought to keep their planet free, and had given Teal’c a chance to strike out against his people’s oppressors. They had defeated Ra, the Supreme System Lord, long before their knowledge or weaponry had developed. Teal’c had grown attached to the SGC, to General Hammond and his wisdom and leadership, but other voices now whispered doubts to Teal’c in the dark nights, in the flickering candle flame, in the daily silences where the good-natured bantering of his teammates once sounded.

Daniel Jackson had been hurt, maimed, and although his spirit seemed strong, his battle against the Goa’uld had been stifled. His mind still sought to unravel the secrets of the ages, his lips still uttered words of friendship and ancient wisdom, but few now heard of Daniel Jackson’s discoveries, and even fewer were exposed to his honesty and his passion, his limitless efforts to make allies to enrich the lives of all those who would oppose the Goa’uld. The Tau’ri had indeed lost their voice among the stars.

Teal’c’s hands ached from clenching, his muscles aching, not from hard work or exercise, but from the unrelenting tension that gripped him. SG-1 was failing. The three-person team could not continue. They missed their friend, yes, but more so the mind of a scholar. The hopefulness of a determined survivor. The inherent joy of one who would make friends wherever he went. Teal’c and O’Neill were warriors, men of action and not of words. And Major Carter, although more peaceable by nature, had been trained to investigate and examine, not to speak of comradeship and win hearts. 

Teal’c nodded, blindly acknowledging two Earth-bound scholars who passed him by. The men and women of the SGC still treated the members of SG-1 with respect. With the distant regard of those who might share a common foe and a common fight, but not at all the same sacrifices. Not anymore. General Hammond’s shoulders were heavy with the truth of the team’s collapse. Questions nagged at him. Those who wielded power above his head demanded perfection. And Teal’c found that the changes in his friends, and in himself, pecked at his spirit like the words of a shrewish woman. He did not like change – it grated against nerves and muscles that had been dug into deep grooves by discipline and patience. 

Teal’c had learned to change for his new brothers. He wore new clothes and adopted a new language. He made the Tau’ri’s habits and rituals his own. But the changes had been superficial, radiating from the surface of his skin. In his soul, Teal’c was still a warrior. One who both obeyed and gave orders. One who surrounded himself with trusted comrades and sought to strike fatally at his enemies. A sharpened sword – a truncheon – a well-aimed blast that cut out the Goa’uld’s heart.

No, he did not like change. And change was all that had been offered him since Daniel Jackson’s injury.

His brother’s maiming had struck deep and wide, penetrating throughout SG-1, the Tau’ri government, the SGC and on to their allies on other worlds. Bra’tac and the Jaffa took it as proof of their doubts. The Tok’ra, always reluctant to lend aid, drew back their hands and whispered behind their bland, baleful faces about dangerous risks and the frailty of unblended humans. The Tollan smiled and shook their heads until Teal’c was urged to reach out and remove them both – permanently. The pain of his brother’s wounds became his own, and the stoic, lighthearted acceptance of his new limitations ate at Teal’c’s thoughts until he might burst.

In some ways, Teal’c wished to take his leave, to turn his back on Daniel Jackson as he would have a Jaffa warrior who had sustained such an injury. To pretend that ritual suicide – a Jaffa’s only option – would have been the best choice for them all. To treat his brother as if he was already dead.

Fortunately, Daniel Jackson was not a Jaffa. And Teal’c was honest enough to see the cowardice within himself that would wish to end his brother’s life so that pain could be removed from his own.

“Teal’c!”

Halting mid-stride, Teal’c twisted his neck, frowning down at the slight, out-of-breath figure that had appeared at his side.

“Nyan.” He bowed, hands behind his back to disguise their tension. “I have not seen you in some time nor had occasion to speak with you.” The young man had made a life for himself among an alien people, cut off from his home, friends, and family because of their dogmatic beliefs and aggressive military oppression. The two had much in common and yet were profoundly different. Soldier and scholar. Single-minded warrior and curious student. Both had turned their backs on home in order to save SG-1 and Teal’c would always treat the other man with the respect he had earned. Nyan did not deserve to bear the torrent of Teal’c’s wrath. “How may I assist you?”

The man’s eyes were troubled, his hands grasping a thick folder held before him.

“I think I have to go home, Teal’c.”

Both eyebrows rose high. How strange. It was an echo of Teal’c’s own thought. He turned to face the other man.

“Your words surprise me. You have never made such a request before. Is it not likely that you will be seized immediately upon your return and that you would pay dearly for your perceived betrayal?”

Nyan blushed furiously. “I don’t – I suppose that is the truth. But I would like to try. To at least speak with those who now hold the Gateway – the Stargate – whoever that might be.”

“Why has this become necessary?” Teal’c’s eyes narrowed. Nyan had forsaken his people in order to heal Teal’c and save SG-1, but he neither sought out Teal’c’s camaraderie nor felt the need to seek a deeper bond with him. “You speak to me of this rather than to Daniel Jackson.”

The young Bedrosian understood at once. “Daniel mustn’t know.”

Ah. Teal’c now understood. “You would risk much for the sake of Daniel Jackson.”

Nyan’s features settled into stark lines of determination. “He … he is my friend. And there is something on my planet that might help him. You know that.”

Teal’c took the young man by the elbow and led him into a nearby office, unassigned since Doctor Ashburn, SG-9’s linguist, had been lost. The space reminded Teal’c of a picked-over carcass; the polished metal tables laid bare, empty chairs lined up against one wall, desk emptied of the young woman’s personal items. A calendar, stuck somehow to the concrete wall just above where she would have sat, still caught on a month long past, the happy notation of “VACATION” circled twice in purple. Far enough away from Daniel Jackson’s office, unused, these walls would not have the ears O’Neill had often spoken of.

“I shall always be grateful for your assistance when I was injured. The Bedrosian device that repaired my sight was left behind when we fled.”

“Yes. Then you understand that I must try – I have to try to help him,” Nyan interrupted.

Teal’c held up one hand to stop Nyan’s eager speech. “You also know that Daniel Jackson would not desire any harm to come to you on the thin possibility that you would be able to return safely to us.”

“But Teal’c, you didn’t see him when he got back from the infirmary today, or when we unpacked the tablets from PRJ-599.” Nyan’s features softened, his eyes clouded by sadness. “He’s been so solid, so calm and adaptable all this time, but I think now, now that so much time has passed he’s finally realizing that there is no hope.”

The smaller man’s eyes flicked back and forth between Teal’c’s, anxious to communicate the depth of his fears, the unshakeable determination to assist his mentor in any way he could. To accept any risk. To humble himself – to grovel – before those who would only wish him ill. Teal’c’s symbiote roiled in his gut, twisting and squirming. Of course Teal’c understood.

Teal’c maneuvered Nyan towards two metal framed chairs that remained against one wall. Pressing the distressed man into one, Teal’c sat, leaning forward so as to minimize the vast differences in their heights and to bring his gaze in line with the other’s.

“Do you not think, Nyan, that O’Neill, Major Carter, and I did all that we could do to obtain a way of healing our brother? Do you believe that we overlooked any opportunity to regain his wholeness, his presence at our sides?” Teal’c could hear his voice shake even in its softness, even as he sought to restrain the grief and anger that burned as an unquenchable fire in his soul. “Did you consider that we, blood-brothers, family, would not sacrifice all that we have and are and hope to be in order to see the light come back into Daniel Jackson’s eyes?”

Nyan’s eyes widened. “Teal’c, I-“

“We sought the Tok’ra on every planet. We hunted a Goa’uld sarcophagus. We pleaded with the Tollan, sought out Thor of the Asgard, and still we returned with empty hands and sorrowing souls.” Teal’c picked through those days, those months of searching. He remembered O’Neill’s tight lips, his dark eyes, once full of life, now depthless and echoing. Major Carter’s eager speech as she examined the mission files of every SG team again and again, seeking a hint, a clue of power. Of unearthly healing. Of technology. His mind was filled with their failures, but, what had struck the final blow at Teal’c’s unfaltering confidence was O’Neill’s pale features as he suggested that they attempt to dial the Eurondan home world so that he might debase himself before those who would bring their world to ruin in order to create a “pure” race.

His anger broke through the walls of silence and grief that he had built around it. How dare this man? This outsider? How dare this has’sak assume that Teal’c had neglected his friend, the man who had spoken of his most profound losses in order to save Teal’c from the Cor-Ai. The man who had destroyed Thor’s Hammer, their only hope of Sha’re’s healing, so that Teal’c could be free. The man who had forgiven the unforgiveable. “There is nothing – nothing – which I would not do for my brother,” Teal’c growled. “For the best man I have ever known.”

Teal’c looked at the alien and his rage fell away in fluttering ruins. Nyan had closed his eyes and tears seeped out from beneath his eyelids, anointing his face as if it was an offering to the gods. Narrow shoulders drooping, he trembled, not with fear of Teal’c or his jealous anger, but with an aching, unending sorrow that matched Teal’c’s own. He laid one broad hand on the young man’s shoulder, apology and compassion in its weight and warmth.

“You dialed Bedrosia?” Nyan whispered.

“We did.”

Nyan blinked, eyes seeking the answer Teal’c did not speak. “And…”

“They have buried their ‘gate, my friend. Either during their continuing war, or through their unyielding ignorance.”

“Then there truly is no hope for Daniel?”

Teal’c straightened. “There was a wise man of the Tau’ri who was killed as he spoke against evil. Daniel Jackson told me of this man, of the struggles he faced. He shared the wisdom and courage of this Martin Luther King’s words and actions.” Teal’c bowed his head solemnly, caught up in the memory of sitting with his friend amidst a field of candles, peace and serenity enveloping them both as Daniel Jackson shared his grief after Shau’nac’s death. He had been so enraged. So full of vengeance. But, once again, his friend had come to him with his quiet words and his open heart. “This great leader once said, ‘We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.’”

“’The Infinite?’ You would leave this matter to the gods then, Teal’c?”

He heard the disbelief in Nyan’s question. “Those who have lived under the power of the false gods of the Goa’uld do not believe in such things easily. However.” He raised his open hands between them. Looked at the indented flesh, the scars from his nails’ bite, the remnants of his anger. “We must recognize when we have done all we can, with the power each of us has been granted. And then we must step back and … hope. In other hands. And other powers.”

Nyan wiped the tears from his face, taking a moment to steady himself. “I do not know of these ‘other hands,’ Teal’c. I have always been a man of science and study. But I do realize that you and Colonel O’Neill and Major Carter would do anything for Daniel. And I’m sorry if I offended you.”

Teal’c waited, watching the young man stare down at his shaking hands.

“I wish my hands had the power you speak of. Or that I could … pray … as others can.”

“In that, my friend, we are united,” Teal’c murmured.

A slight noise at the open doorway lifted Teal’c’s head.

“Teal’c? I’ve been looking for you.”

He rose, Nyan a moment slower at his side. “Major Carter. How may I assist you?”

This warrior of the Tau’ri, this scientist, friend, and comrade appeared no less exhausted, no less consumed by despair than O’Neill and Teal’c. Her eyes were shadowed, her movements ungraceful, and yet Teal’c detected something new within Major Carter’s features. Some new determination, a hint of the steel backbone she had always exhibited before. He stepped towards her.

“We need to talk,” she began firmly.


	7. Chapter 7

Daniel stood at the edge of his patio, one hand wrapped loosely around the beam of his pergola. Boxwood and jasmine lingered on the breeze, tickling his senses and stirring memories of more exotic locations, far away from his new condo in Colorado Springs. His mind ushered him through the walled gardens of his professor’s house in Cairo where he’d learned to appreciate the tiny cups of black, Turkish coffee. Back to Abydos where small white flowers were woven through Sha’re’s shining hair, her eyes glimmering at the edge of their fire. He remembered how the heavy spice of cumin and cardamom had drawn him through the crowds of a Moroccan bazaar until a certain pair of curved swords caught his eye.

He rubbed his fingers along the soft, sanded wood, his skin remembering the feel of a brush handle, the cool grey sand at the bottom of a trench, the rough, chiseled stone of ages long past.

Scent. Taste. Touch. These senses were supposed to be sharper now, weren’t they? Doubled and tripled to take up the slack for his ruined eyes? Like that blind superhero who used echolocation to target his ninja kicks. Funny, Daniel smiled, all his other senses seemed to do was to confuse him with random images and scenes from his past. From his sighted past.

Coffee always reminded him of his father, shaving with one hand while the other never let go of the hand-thrown ceramic mug his mother had made. The sharp scent of Teal’c’s doused candles brought Nick to mind, smoking those thin acrid cigars one after the other as he stood at Daniel’s side at his parents’ funeral. Sam’s magnolia blossom shampoo sometimes threw Daniel back to Saturday mornings kneeling in the rich black soil beside Ellen Wathouse, his foster mother, as she tended her garden.

His fingers found a knot in the beam and followed its swirling curves, the shallow gouge down its middle. Strange alphabets swam before him. Cyrillic or Greek F. Phoenician or Paleo-Hebrew Q. Few ancient languages outside of the mid-east utilized the curved line for their letters or pictographs. Short strokes, differing in length and breadth and aspect, joined up end to end or side by side. Whatever ancient man could do with some wet sand and a stick. Daniel remembered a particular alien beach. Or a webbed finger.

A line of glyphs drew itself across his mind’s eye; circles, flattened curves, the wedge shapes of cuneiform interspersed with thin lines. The tablets of PRJ-599. Something tugged at his memory. Something …

Footfalls against the brick patio grew louder and snapped Daniel back to the present. Boots. Sandals. “So, Paul called in the big guns.” Daniel cocked his head, catching the faint whiff of garlic and expensive cologne. “Low blow, Major.”

“I figured if you wouldn’t believe me…”

Nervousness and determination, the two defining qualities of Paul Davis’ voice this evening, no matter how much Daniel pushed him. Yelled at him. Threw scathing, hurtful barbs against his intentions and character. Daniel raised his hand to stop the man’s explanations. “Sorry. This is all just –“ Upsetting. Infuriating. Wrong.

“I, too, question this decision, Daniel Jackson.”

“I told the general you wouldn’t like it.” Sam moved to stand at Daniel’s side.

“Understatement,” he muttered. “So, why are you here, then? Because, I’ll tell you, unless we’re going to come up with a plan to stop this kangaroo court before it starts, I’m out.”

He turned his head, targeting Sam’s face. He couldn’t see her, didn’t know for sure where she stood, if she even faced him, but he’d been at her side for years now, dealing with fears and worries, anger and doubt. He was pretty sure Sam Carter was facing him squarely, hands on her hips, blue eyes glittering with passion.

“I mean it, Sam. I won’t be a party to this. And I can’t believe you and Teal’c and the general are going through with this.”

“Daniel -"

“Targeting Jack like this? Putting him through this … interrogation? Isolating him under the guise of ‘military justice’?” He loaded his expression with as much disdain as it would hold. “I won’t hurt him like that. I may be pissed at him for ignoring me, but I would never want – you can’t think that I’d –"

Anger swelled up and choked off his words and Daniel shook his head, teeth clenched, the rampaging headache tight and white hot around his skull.

Sam’s quiet insistence stabbed straight through his pain. “They don’t see any other way, Daniel.”

“And just how hard did they try?” Did you try?” he demanded, searching blindly for a hint of Paul’s presence. “Dammit, I thought you were our voice, our champion. You’ve seen first-hand the horrific decisions that are piled up on Jack’s back, and the weight of responsibility that he manages to bear every time we go out there.” He swept his arm out towards the stars. “No one – no one who sits on the sidelines, far away from the blood and sweat should subject him to this kind of … stupidity.”

The night air moved and Daniel felt the warmth of Teal’c’s bulk along his side. “Major Davis has done all that he can, Daniel Jackson. He is your friend, as is General Hammond. Can you not trust them?”

He wanted to say yes. To apologize to Paul. To show them all that he would not throw out these accusations easily. He wanted to look into Teal’c’s dark eyes and share his pain, his despair. He wanted to see if Sam had tears in her eyes, that Paul was pale but calm, convinced that this was the right thing to do.

Shoulders slumping, Daniel shoved his fingers up under his glasses, pressing against his useless eyes. The darkness didn’t change. The darkness that was now his life, that held him separate and alone, distanced from his friends, his colleagues – his family. The darkness had changed him in so many ways, but in this one most especially. Without the visual cues he’d spent a lifetime honing so that he could spot a lie, a shifting glance, an uncomfortable grimace, the one whose judgment he didn’t trust was himself.

“It was not Jack’s fault,” Daniel insisted wearily.

“No one here is arguing with you, Daniel.” Sam’s fingers slipped around his wrist, squeezing once, tugging his hands from his face.

“I want to talk to Jack.” Now, especially. No matter that the past eight months of trying time after time, of trips to his office, visits to his house with Sam or Teal’c or some random airman dropping him off had accomplished nothing, Daniel had to try. “He’s my best friend, the idiot,” he whispered, turning away.

“You have tried, Daniel Jackson. We have all tried.”

“I’ll take a cab –"

Daniel made it three steps towards the sliding doors before Teal’c’s hands closed on his shoulders, stopping him – gently – in his tracks.

“Daniel, please.” There were the tears, just beneath Sam’s plea. Tears and steel and true compassion.

“This is how it has to go down, Daniel. Trust us. Trust me.”

That was Paul piling on. So certain, so sure.

Daniel spun to face them. “You won’t let me talk to him. Won’t let me see him. You don’t care about my testimony or my feelings even though I was the injured party.” He smacked his fist against his chest, reveling in the slight flinch of Teal’c’s grip. “Then I want to talk to Hammond.”

“He’s not going to change his –"

“No. Fine.” He held up both hands. “I get it. It’s done. Written in stone.” He barked out a nasty laugh. “Exactly. I want to go through the Stargate to PRJ-599. To join SG-11 and meet with the Durrians and study their culture.”

As the silence of his friends lengthened, the evening sounds grew up around them. A dog barked and was silenced by a child’s voice. Next door, steak sizzled on a barbecue. A persistent squirrel chittered and scraped against Daniel’s empty bird feeder. The familiar sounds mocked him, each one calling up a peculiar, bittersweet memory of Jack O’Neill, the most annoying, infuriating, faithful friend Daniel had ever had. “Every earth child must have a dog. It’s the law.” Backyard team cookouts and extremely well-done steaks. And the man’s innate ability to annoy and pester. Sorrow crowded Daniel’s soul; sorrow and anger and frustration. “I won’t stay at the SGC as a witness to Jack’s immolation.”

“I will speak to General Hammond on your behalf, Daniel Jackson. And I will accompany you off-world should he have any doubts concerning your safety.”

Daniel ducked his head, embarrassed by Teal’c’s offer. He shouldn’t put his teammate in a position to choose between him and Jack. “Maybe you should stay and help. Be there for Jack.”

“I’ll stay, Daniel. If anyone understands the military way of doing things it’s me.”

“Thank you.” He nodded. Sam was right. Sam knew how to work the antiquated, concrete-lined military mindset. If a genius Air Force major and daughter of a general couldn’t do it, who could? Even so, doubts churned his gut into a maelstrom. “You’re sure …”

“I think going off-world, doing the things you love, the work that you excel at, is the perfect idea. That is, if you don’t mind listening to my opinion.”

Daniel shook his head, wincing at the jagged shard that seemed to be slicing through every nerve behind his eyes. “Paul. I’m sorry. You were brave enough to stand on the front lines tonight with me. I haven’t rewarded you very well for that.”

Teal’c rearranged himself to Daniel’s left, leaving room for the major to slide closer. Paul took Daniel’s hand, shook it once, and then just held on. “I don’t know that any of us can expect ‘rewards’ from all this, Daniel. I can only hope that we’re all friends again when it’s over.”

Daniel stood while Paul moved past him into the house. Sam leaned in to kiss him on the cheek as she followed. The quiet of the evening lapped in careful waves around him, the squirrel having given up his demands, burnt food eaten, and dog taken in to spend the night at his master’s feet. He moved back to the edge of the patio, one hand held out to find the railing. Daniel leaned heavily against the post, one shoulder barely supporting his weight as the forward momentum of his anger fell away. He slid the sunglasses from his nose and lifted his face to the black sky, instinctively pointing towards the southwest, towards Abydos.

“Hope. I’m not too good at hope,” he sighed.

“That is not true, Daniel Jackson. You have taught me much about hope over the years of our friendship. Hope for Sha’re. Hope for success in our struggles. Hope for friendship in place of distrust and deceit. Hope for the Jaffa. The Tok’ra.”

Daniel had known Teal’c stayed behind, strong and silent. He let his teammate’s words flow over him, slipping past the muffling barriers Daniel’s injury and distance had erected.

“I don’t know, Teal’c…”

“Then make use of my knowledge, my friend. My certainty.” A steady hand took Daniel’s and guided it towards Teal’c’s elbow. “I believe I may reach Kel-no-reem tonight, if you would permit me to stay.”

“Of course. And –" Daniel followed, frowning at the sudden lump in his throat, “thank you.”

The darkness wasn’t quite so black, not quite so empty and smothering with a friend to share it.


	8. Chapter 8

Jack leaned against the rail of his upper deck, his back hunched awkwardly, forearms flat along the smooth plank. The three-quarters full beer bottle dangled from his fingers, unwanted and warm. A prop, rounding out the image that this was a normal, peaceful Sunday evening in the Springs, and that Jack was a normal guy, relishing the last part of the weekend before taking off to his normal job at his normal desk Monday morning.

Well, it was peaceful, anyway. The crickets were drowsy tonight. The low coo of the mourning doves nesting in the line of ash trees beyond the fence made a nice, kinda melodramatic soundtrack for Jack’s musings. Clear skies reaching all the way to Abydos, the stars shone bright in the black heavens, the sprays of lightning bugs amidst the trees looking they were trying to mimic the constellations. Jack grunted, hauling himself upright and more so to stretch out the old-man kinks in the ole vertebrae. He’d miss the view.

The house was ready. He’d cleaned up the joint, emptied the fridge, made sure that all the paperwork was up to date. Everything important would go into the file he’d take with him to the base in the morning. Ross Bennett had been surprised to hear from him. Lawyers, Jack grimaced. A necessary evil. At least Ross was a former Navy brat so Jack could pretend to get along with him for as long as he had to. Updated the will. Changed a few things. It was less than the least Jack could do.

“Yep, all in all, I’ve got no complaints,” Jack sighed into the evening breeze. 

“Well, I do. Good grief, do you ever think about trimming these flesh-eating triffids?”

His beer bottle tipping dangerously to one side, Jack leaned far over the railing to spot a tousled brown head rising up the narrow ladder that led to his star-gazing perch, hauling a tiny yet authoritarian presence towards him, while one hand batted at the climbing rose vines that seemed to be scenting blood.

“Janet?”

“Who else would beard the moping lion in its den?” A few un-doctorly curses punctuated the evening repose. “Figured it was my turn, anyway, since Teal’c and Sam and Daniel couldn’t pierce that defensive crouch you’d taken.” She stormed up the last few rungs and planted herself right in front of him. “Did you at least save me one of those?”

Janet’s daunting figure, hands on her hips and scowling, jerked Jack out from his frozen shock and he fumbled blindly at his side for another bottle.

“Uh –"

The small doctor cocked her head and looked him up and down. “Brilliant as ever, you smooth talker,” she smirked, sending the bottle cap into the ice bucket with one flick of the wrist.

“Well, excuse me if I’m surprised by this sudden house call, Doc. What with me not being sick and all. Or, you know, inviting you,” he added, not trying to conceal his irritation in the least.

“Believe me, I was in a much better mood before I had to make my way through the obstacle course that is your hedges and lose a quarter of my blood supply to your venomous tentaculars.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Did you ever think of calling?”

“Did you ever think of turning on your phone?” she shot back.

Oh, right. Landline service cancelled. Cell phone … somewhere in the house, battery safely dead. “Yeah, right,” he turned back to the rail. “I guess it’s easy to miss those subtle signals I was giving off that I really wasn’t in the mood for visitors, huh?”

“Much to no one’s surprise, subtle is not your middle name, Colonel.” Janet shifted her weight, leaning her hips against the railing on the other side of the narrow ladder. She sighed, loud and long until it started to sound more like a growl. “You do know that you’re getting on my last nerve, don’t you?”

“If I had a nickel,” Jack murmured, taking a sip of the warm brew for a lack of anything else to say.

“If you had a nickel for every single brain cell you’ve been using for the last eight months, then you’d have just about five cents. Sir.”

“Longer.” Longer than eight months. Eight months and three days, specifically. Jack’s gut clenched, hinting that he might be seeing that beer again in a minute if he wasn’t careful. “Looks like I’ve more than lived up to the ‘stupid Colonel’ image, huh, Janet?”

“Dammit, that is not what I’m talking about and you know it.” Anger fizzled across the scant distance between them. “You are being intentionally idiotic and the constant self-deprecation is looking less like sympathy for a friend and more and more like Cassie’s brand of teenaged melodramatic angst. It doesn’t suit you and it sure as hell doesn’t help anyone else.”

Jack raised his bottle in a mock toast without turning his head. “Consider me scolded then, mom. Gonna put me in time out and take away my TV privileges or are you just going to wait for the Air Force to do it for you?”

“Aw, did I break up the pity party, colonel? Interrupt your self-righteous wallowing? Isn’t that just too bad.”

Jack narrowed his eyes at her scathing attack, staring as Janet tossed back half the contents of the bottle, swiped one wrist cross her mouth, and then snapped off a salute made of three parts sarcasm and one part sheer nastiness. “Quite the inspiring figure you’ve been cutting for the recruits, sir.”

“Hey!” Jack’s back straightened, his eyes sparking fire. “Can the snark, Major, my house, my beer, my damned life – at least for now – and I neither welcome nor require your opinion.”

“In short, it’s your party and you’ll cry if you want to?” Janet slammed the bottle down on the deck’s thin rail, amber waves splashing over her hand. “What the hell happened to you, Jack? Since when do you turn away from your team - your friends - and decide that this situation revolves around you? That you have monopoly on blame and guilt and responsibility?”

Jack shook his head, raising his eyes to the heavens. “I do not want to talk about this – I am not talking about this. Talk is cheap. And overrated.”

“You don’t get to decide, that, Colonel.”

Jack loomed over her, using every single inch of height and width and age like he never had before. “It’s called being in command, Doctor. Something you are obviously unfamiliar with.”

“You think so? You think I don’t hold lives in my hands and in my staff’s hands every day of the week?” she poked one sharp finger into Jack’s chest hard enough to draw blood. “Get off your cross, Jack. And look around. You’re the only one holding yourself up there – nobody else brought a hammer or nails.”

Jack puffed out his chest, teeth clenched and glared down into her eyes. Janet’s eyes. Dark and deep and filled with emotion. A friend’s eyes. He deflated, and the reflection of his grief and guilt was mirrored back to him. He rubbed one hand over his face, feeling every crease, every wrinkle, and every scar. Grey hair stuck up in short tufts, two-day old beard and blood-shot eyes probably made him look like the burnt-out old wino he’d always been on the inside.

“Janet -"

“Jack –"

He harrumphed a laugh and shook his head, reaching out to draw her into a hug. If she clung just has hard to him as he did to her, neither of the two formidable friendly opponents would ever tell. In a moment she stepped back and swept the tears from her ace, as angry at the outward show of grief as she had been at him a few second ago.

“Can I ask you a question?”

He really didn’t want her to. Didn’t want to consider any other course than the one laid out in front of him. The road he’d started down with one wave of his hand at his responsibility and a bunch of misplaced irritation back on Ledaro. He was looking straight on to the end of that road, anxious to get there. But, he shrugged, his bland expression telling Janet all she needed to know, he owed her this one.

“Do you think Daniel, your friend, your best friend, is happy about how this is playing out? Do you think this ‘punishment’ you are so eager for is going to heal his heart?” She held onto Jack’s wrist with one hand, her grip tight, her stare as fierce and powerful as her personality. “Is this what he wants?”

“Daniel –" He stopped, images flashing through his mind. A long-haired geek being dragged off through the sand on an alien planet. Stepping in front of a killing blast meant for Jack. Getting the life hugged out of him in the ‘gate room. Lying beside his wife’s dead body. Arguing with Jack over a bowl of oatmeal, or an alien temple, or in a Goa’uld dungeon, blue eyes flashing with passion, with annoyance, with intelligence, with disdain. A bang. A scream. Blood and fear and –

“What Daniel wants most is what he can’t have. And that’s on me.” Jack turned away. “He forgave Teal’c. He forgave Shyla. I know he forgives me. But,” he smiled at one more memory stamped forever in his mind, “as I told him a long time ago, I’ll never forgive myself.”

He felt her at his back. “Jack. Colonel. Daniel is not your son.”

“No.” Children and guns. Look away for one minute, allow yourself to be distracted or lazy or too damned stupid to live and you’re left with death and grief and a life that is not worth living. “I’m not sure Daniel was ever a child. Not since his parents died. Even an eight-year-old knew that truth – look away for one moment and everything you’ve ever loved is torn away.” Grief and guilt had tied the two men together from day one. Jack had taught Daniel a lot about being a soldier. About protecting himself from the enemy, from the people trying to kill him. He’d never managed to teach him how to protect himself from the best intentions of his friends. “Daniel may not like it, but he’ll understand.” Eventually.

“With all due respect, sir. You’re wrong.”

Jack turned, lips tight, gaze fixed over Janet’s head. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” Hopefully, though, it would be the last.


	9. Chapter 9

Daniel allowed the sweep and curl of the alien language to shift through his mind, tangling and piling up in meaningless clumps before drifting into ordered lines and columns. He imagined the craftsman working with chisel and hammer, cutting in each glyph in precise lines and curves, each of the tiny circles placed perfectly. He watched, an invisible observer from the unseen future, as the man – the woman – bent over his work, eyes reddened, skin and hair choked with dust. How long had it taken him to put this story into stone? To make sure it survived fires and floods, sickness and drought? Did he take up this work at the behest of a wealthy patron or did she secrete it in her humble home, careful to work on it only when no one could see?

His thoughts swirled as his hands moved in familiar motions, honed to muscle memory over the four years SG-1 had been stepping through the ‘gate onto alien worlds. He remembered the first few times, when the quartermaster had simply handed Daniel an already filled pack and one of those god-awful helmets just before he walked into the ‘gate room. After a mission where they were stuck for 6 days with only MREs, an entire multi-leveled structure crammed with pictograms, and exactly two pencils – which broke by day 3 – Daniel had packed his own damned pack. He lifted his face and smiled. Not without supervision, of course.

Sam, perched nearby on her favorite stool, handed him item after item, never missing a beat in their usual rhythm. He didn’t think about it too much; didn’t let himself remember a different presence at his side, a different rhythm – usually made by Jack’s incessant need to tap or bang or generally touch and mess with anything and everything within arm’s reach. The man always accused Daniel of chattering on and on, but Jack O’Neill on a good day could out-talk his favorite hockey color announcer at the Grey Cup. Daniel pulled the Durrian language back up across those memories like a thick dust cloth hastily thrown over something rare and precious. 

A strangely shaped package dropped into his hand and Daniel paused. What… he squeezed gently and listened to the crackling of plastic. Making sure his pack would remain upright on the table, he lifted the other hand to trace the object’s shape. This wasn’t right. The next item on his mental tally sheet should be the video… Oh. He caught the lower rung of the stool with one heel and pulled it underneath him, catching the package in his lap.

“It’s a label maker and extra labels, Daniel. Nyan thought you should have it.”

He nodded, flipping open the waterproof pouch and letting his fingers brush across the raised dots of the buttons. “Good idea,” he managed. “Nyan thinks of everything.”

“He does. I’m glad he’s found a home here.”

A home. Daniel wondered if that was really possible. For Nyan. For Teal’c. For Cassie. Earth was so different from their true homes, so far away from every person they’d ever known. It was better than being imprisoned, or enslaved, or abandoned, yes, but still, Daniel shook his head, the SGC could do better by them. Daniel could do better – be a better friend. “He tries so hard to help me,” he murmured. “I wonder sometimes what I’ve done to deserve him. To deserve all of you.”

Sam’s sigh was very dramatic. “You’re just our cross to bear, Daniel. But, then again, I’m practically perfect, so –"

“Okay, okay,” he laughed, “stop your ego, I want to get off, Mary Poppins.”

“Humph. Ingrate,” she replied. 

After another few seconds of silence, she tapped him on the knee. “Better hurry up. Don’t want to keep Teal’c waiting.”

He rose, setting the package carefully into the empty space he’d automatically reserved for the camera, and then hesitated. “I can’t help remembering –"

“The last time we did this? Me, either.” Sam’s stool creaked. “I mean, I’ve gone on missions since. But packing up with Teal’c is a completely different experience,” she added.

“Not nearly enough chocolate,” Daniel smiled.

“Indeed.” Sam tried for the ‘stately Jaffa basso profundo.’ “It’s not a ritual with him. Or with the Colonel. They’re both a little too quiet, a little too matter-of-fact and get-it-over-with for me. I missed doing this with you.”

Daniel wondered if she’d shrugged. Glanced down. Sam Carter’s particular embarrassment when someone caught her out having those pesky feelings and emotions while she was in her uniform. “Me, too.”

“And that last mission?” Sam’s voice was louder and softer as she moved from her perch to wander through Daniel’s office. “Nothing about that was ‘normal.’ We were already kind of broken. Hurting, anyway. Did you know that I had spent the two nights before the mission to Ledaro writing up a proposal to take a six week sabbatical? To concentrate on pure research for a while?”

Eyebrows lifting, Daniel turned towards her. “No. I had no idea.” And wasn’t that sad? “I’m sorry, Sam. Once upon a time you would have told me. Or, even more important, I would have asked.”

A light hand touched down on his arm before retreating. “Once upon a time I would never have considered leaving the team, even for a short time. But I think you understand. You were the first to notice the strain, the first to give yourself some distance to figure it out.”

It hadn’t taken Daniel much thought to agree to Robert Rothman’s extended dig on Chaka’s planet. Sam was right – the team had been tearing apart, their famous loyalty and allegiance fraying badly at the edges. And those long days beneath the icy surface of P3R-118, believing they were strangers. Well, that certainly hadn’t helped. He and Jack had tried to kill each other. If Teal’c hadn’t been strong enough to overcome the conditioning, if he hadn’t gotten through to them, well, who knew?

“Ledaro seemed like such an opportunity.” Sam was still moving. “I loved helping them with their primitive telegraph. Getting my hands into their tech. Ulliy was so bright, so excited about learning.”

“Yeah, she reminded me of you when I first met you on Abydos,” Daniel didn’t have to try too hard to recreate that scene, Sam chattering about planetary shifts while Jack looked on like a fond – and slightly annoyed – older brother. He pretended his heart didn’t break, just a little, at the memory of Sha’re’s smile, her touch, her kiss. “Ledaro was a good place, filled with good people,” he hurried to agree. “Nothing that happened there changes that.” He rubbed at his aching forehead with one hand. “It shouldn’t have changed anything.”

The silence seemed to sing with Sam’s unvoiced denial, loud and echoing. It deafened him to her approach, to the catch of her breath, until slim arms encircled him from behind and she laid her head on his shoulder. “It changed everything, Daniel.” Her hands were planted flat against his chest, right over the scars there. “It changed you, and you, my friend, are the very center of us.”

Daniel leaned his head against hers for a moment. “But it shouldn’t have changed anything important.” He caught her hands in place before she could rear back and let him have it. “What I mean is,” he continued gently, “it shouldn’t have changed the way we feel about each other. Our friendship.” He lifted the shoulder she was using as a prop in a jiggly motion. “Our support.”

“Our love,” she whispered, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before she dug her chin into the top of his head. “Say it. C’mon, say it, you man.”

He laughed. “Yeah, our luuuuurve,” he sang.

She smacked at him playfully before stepping back. He waited her out, knowing, even without seeing that particular look in her blue eyes, that she wasn’t finished. “It really hasn’t, you know.”

“Hasn’t what?”

“Really changed anything.”

Daniel huffed out a laugh and set his folders and his voice recorder into the last empty spot in his pack. “I think Jack would disagree with you about that.”

“No, Daniel, I don’t think so.” She took his hands and guided them so that the papers could lay flat along the back of his pack. “Do you really think he’s stopped caring about you?”

One of the last sights Daniel would ever see was Jack’s horror-filled expression, silver head bent over Daniel, callused hands on each side of his head, trying to hold him still as he screamed and choked. Jack had been there. Shouting. Demanding. The growling of the animals, the musky scent of their fur, the weapons’ fire, wood rending, flesh tearing. Daniel had turned his head too late. Moved, too soon. The skirka had been too close, Jack too far away as the pain exploded Daniel’s world. His friend’s voice had almost been drowned out by Daniel’s agony. Almost, but not quite. Daniel closed his useless eyes and surrendered to the memory.

“No, nonononono. Daniel. Come on. Shh. Shh. It’s okay. I’ve got you. Jesus. Why – what the hell -” Daniel had gripped both wrists, trying to breathe, to beg, to get Jack to stop the burning, the blood, everything. But he remembered the tears in Jack’s eyes. The black guilt descending over him; the absolute zero of his sorrow. “Charlie. Charlie,” Jack had rasped as Daniel’s consciousness faded, “stay with me. Please. Please, Charlie.”

No. Jack still cared. Cared too much, Daniel knew. Too much to be comfortable, or easy, or able to forgive himself. But now it was buried beneath guilt and anger and self-loathing and the soul-deep loss of his son. Now it did no one any good. Especially Jack.

“I wish,” Daniel sat heavily on the stool, his resolve and determination falling away, “I wish he’d just … talk to me.”

The click and snap of his pack’s closures sounded like gunshots.

“I’m sorry, Daniel.”

“Me, too.”

~ ~ ~

“You are acting foolishly, O’Neill.”

Jack didn’t stir. “You know, you’re not exactly a light-weight, T. Sneaking up on people is not your forte.” Especially when there was a big-ass, reflecty window right in front of him. Jack waited, one shoulder propped up against the frequency modulator that sat to the left of the little sergeant’s usual post at the Stargate’s control panel. The shadows were just right, here. Just deep enough to keep him from being obvious to anyone who happened to glance up from the ‘gate room. He hadn’t planned on coming down here. Hadn’t planned on doing anything except following Hammond’s orders and heading towards Davis and the interrogation room.

Hadn’t planned on a lot of things, lately.

But the sight of Daniel heading out through the Stargate, well, that couldn’t be denied. Never thought he’d get to see it again, to be honest. “I’m glad you’re going with him, Teal’c.” Jack nodded. “You’ll take care of him.” Better than Jack ever had.

“I will. However, he wishes it was all of SG-1 at his side. You, especially.”

“There is no SG-1 anymore, T. Not until you guys figure it out, anyway. You and Carter and Hammond.” He shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “I’ve got all the faith in the world in you to pull it off.”

Below them, Daniel’s white cane preceded him and Carter through the blast doors, its tap-tap-tap muffled by the swish-clunk of the Stargate churning in its clamps. Daniel moved to the base of the ramp, his stride easy, his pack riding solidly against his back. From the back, it looked like any other mission. Daniel and Carter, heads together, going on and on about cultural indicators, and the absence of electronic impulses, and the importance of leaving the alien ecosystem untouched, blah blah blah. Perfectly normal. Or, it would be, if Daniel’s right hip wasn’t empty of weapons. If his glasses were big round circles framing curious blue eyes. If Carter wasn’t hovering a little too close, one hand on his elbow as if she would hold him back if she could.

Still, the scene broke up the tension clutching at Jack’s gut, lightened the pull of muscles across his back. He smiled. “This is a good thing. Daniel going through the ‘gate. Away from all this.” He lifted his shoulders for a long moment before he let them drop.

“Is it?”

Teal’c’s disapproval soaked the atmosphere like a heavy rain, forcing the ‘gate tech to duck his head as if trying to escape.

“I recall a similar leave-taking, O’Neill. A matching foolishness between you and Daniel Jackson. When you refused to speak with him for what you considered ‘his own good.’” The Jaffa’s frustration was not even thinly veiled. “At that time, he stood here, watching his brother step away from him – possibly forever – with much unresolved between them.”

Jack swallowed an instinctual denial. It wasn’t like that. There was no alien sting operation this time. No unavoidable orders to keep his teammates out of the loop and out of Maybourne’s crosshairs.

Teal’c wasn’t done. “At that time, Daniel Jackson was an innocent victim of your self-sacrifice. Burdened by your acceptance of your orders.”

“Exactly. Of orders, Teal’c,” Jack interrupted. “Of a necessary if distasteful mission. Which this isn’t.”

“I do not agree, O’Neill. This is neither necessary nor … tasteful.” Teal’c moved up beside him, his mouth set in a sour grimace Jack hadn’t seen in years. “This time you choose to wound him with your silence rather than your words. It is the only difference.”

“Daniel’s blind,” Jack snapped. “There’s your difference.”

“He is not the only blind man here,” Teal’c mumbled before he turned away.

The shimmering explosion of the wormhole opening swallowed up the sound of both Teal’c’s exit and Hammond’s quiet entrance. 

The general stooped over the microphone. “Stay safe out there, Doctor Jackson. And God speed.”

Daniel hesitated just before he reached the event horizon, a motion half-begun, as if he would turn. Instead, one hand rose, fingers spread, to feel for the very edge of the gateway. Long fingers flattened across the surface and the image of a younger Daniel, his hair too long and his movements too eager, was superimposed across the image. One finger dipped into the non-liquid pool and pulled back out. Teal’c turned and smiled down at his teammate as a quick laugh rose up from Daniel’s lifted head. Carter had both hands clamped over her lips. On either side of the ramp, as if pulled by some invisible string, two airmen slipped their rifles into their left hands and saluted a man who couldn’t see them.

And then Daniel was gone.

Hammond’s final words followed Jack’s teammates. “I hope you – I hope we all find what we’re looking for, son.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out the beautiful artwork created for this chapter by eilidh17: http://40.media.tumblr.com/f1453968c1d1ccebf1f3b84bc5491eec/tumblr_nxg0vyAUCH1qeo0l1o2_1280.png

“Have a seat, Colonel.”

Jack lifted his chin, settling the stiff collar of his dress shirt a little lower on his neck. Full uniform, rows of fruit salad, all the bells and whistles, doodads and gewgaws, were acting more like a set of concrete shoes than the mask he had been going for when he put it on that morning. It weighed him down, dragged at his spirit. The blue broadcloth seemed to retain the memory of every mission that had gone twisty and wrong and every order that came with a bitter, galling aftertaste. He knew the uniform was clean, shiny and spotless, but the smell of blood, or cordite, of smoke and fear and seared flesh hung around him like some new-age aura.

He blamed Teal’c. For a taciturn Jaffa, the guy could manage to crack Jack’s well-honed calm with a few words and a couple of raised eyebrows. Bastard.

He studied the other uniformed man for a moment. Major Paul Davis. Clean-cut picture boy of Air Force royalty. His father was a retired General, his brother a bigwig at AFSOC, and Davis himself was on the fast track to the diplomatic corps. He’d acted as both friend and foe to the SGC over the years, bringing everything from the wrath of the Joint Chiefs to unparalleled support on some hinky missions. Jack’s eyes narrowed at the officer’s unruffled expression and his faultless posture. Patient. Respectful. Commanding.

Jack pursed his lips, considering. Daniel had always argued that Davis was more on their side than he appeared. That the guy was firmly in the SGC’s camp, even when it appeared otherwise. That he was biding his time, saving up whatever big guns he had in his arsenal for when it was really needed. Huh. This was, apparently, not that time. Jack met the major’s gaze over the table that would act as the bloody platter for Jack’s carved-up career. Good. He nodded, unbuttoned his jacket, and took a seat.

Davis mirrored his movements half a second later, allowing the superior officer – for now – to set the pace. The younger man pressed two buttons on the voice recorder, opened the top file folder, and glanced up to the observation window before he began.

“Major Paul Davis, TAD to Stargate Command in Cheyenne Mountain under command of General George Hammond. I’ll be conducting the inquiry into SG-1’s mission to the Ledaron home-world, otherwise referred to as PCR-787. This interview,” he consulted his watch, “commences at ten hundred hours, June 12, 2001, General Hammond and Major Samantha Carter observing.” He tilted his head towards Jack. “Please identify yourself for the record, Colonel.”

“Colonel Jonathan J. O’Neill, Service number 69-4-141, currently assigned Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain, Second-in-Command and leader of SG-1.”

“And are you here of your own free will, testifying without hesitation or attempt at obfuscation or deceit concerning SG-1’s mission eight months ago?”

Obfuscation. His lips ticked up at one corner but the immediate sarcastic comment didn’t get past his control. “I am and I will.”

“And do you hereby waive any rights to counsel, to all privileges of rank and seniority and against self-incrimination for the duration of this testimony?” Davis’ manner was polished and polite, but his dark eyes seemed to hide a banked fire. 

“I do so hereby waive the described rights and any other civil liberties set down in the US Constitution or the Military Articles of Justice.”

The major placed both hands palm down on the open folder before him. “Then, for the remainder of this inquiry, you are expected to answer any question, stated or implied, with rigorous honesty. Clearance is waived as per the order of General George Hammond, Stargate Command, General Ralph Eberhard, Commander in Chief, North American Aerospace Defense Command, Commander in Chief, U.S. Space Command and Commander, Air Force Space Command, and General Michael E. Ryan, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force. Do you agree with these requirements?”

“I both agree and whole-heartedly concur.” Jack flashed the other man what he hoped was an unsettling smile. “Let’s get on with it, Major.”

“Colonel O’Neill. Please describe SG-1’s assigned mission to Ledaro. How did SG-1 come to receive this mission and what were the mission goals and parameters?”

Jack took a deep breath and let it out. Here we go…

It had been a damned mess of a year. A crapfest. A clusterfuck. Mission after mission, planet after planet after planet of wounds and misunderstandings and arguments that were tearing SG-1 apart. Daniel’s appendix had burst while they were running for their lives from the latest god-wannabe – they’d barely dragged him back to the SGC in time. Hours of surgery later, Daniel had survived, but they’d had to leave him behind to deal with Thor’s untimely arrival with a ship full of tech-eating bugs. Then there were Nazis, more arguments, sides taken in the round-and-round game of military goals versus personal morals. Super-powered armbands. Teal’c’s old girlfriend’s murder and some stupid “feelings” Jack was supposed to have for his 2IC. And wasn’t that all a pile of steaming poo he just couldn’t seem to scrape off the bottom of his size ten boots?

Jack and Teal’c had been stuck in Groundhog Day and then Daniel had been dragged around by a hungry Unas. And, as if all that hadn’t been enough, Jack had ordered Carter to build a bomb in direct defiance of Hammond’s order, and then had promptly fired it at his best friend. Was it any wonder that, after all that, the impressed memories of some guy named Jonah had set him against that idiot Carlin, ready and willing to pound on the guy with fists and feet?

When they’d returned from their brainwashed tour of the ice age, Hammond had been at his wit’s end, ready to order them all into group therapy or out for some ridiculous ‘team building’ retreat – or maybe just to split them up for good. He’d tried one last mission instead. A milk run. Ha.

“SG-5 had run the initial recon mission to PCR-787. They’d met and begun a tentative friendship with the city leaders, Nayati and Inyu. The people there had no dealings with the Goa’uld, didn’t even know who they were or what a Jaffa was. Carter had a theory that their world fell under the Asgard’s protection, but, since we haven’t had any contact with our little grey buddies in a while, it was just a theory. They certainly didn’t have any tech or resources for trade. No ancient languages to decipher. No hidden pockets of naquadah.”

“So,” Davis interrupted, sliding a few pages from one side of his folder to the other, “there were no strategic advantages to be made from visiting the Ledarons? Or from a prolonged stay there?”

“Weapons? Advanced technology? Big honking space guns? No, Major. But they were nice folks. And making friends and allies is another one of our mission parameters as one member of my team keeps reminding me.”

“And yet, after 18 hours on planet, you requested permission for an extension of your mission. You requested…” Davis flipped a few pages – Jack was sure it was purely for show. The guy was a suit, but he was not a dummy, and he would bet Davis’ shiny shoes that he knew the mission reports forwards and backwards. “…three weeks. You requested three weeks. That amount of time is nearly unprecedented.”

Jack nodded, happy to finally get to the crux of the matter. “That’s right. General Hammond had already advised me that he was going to recommend down-time for SG-1, extended down-time. We needed it. And trying to get us out of the base and onto some beach or mountain-top somewhere on Earth is harder than it should be. My team agreed that they’d prefer to use their vacation time to help the Ledarons with a settlement expansion they were already planning.”

“Your team agreed.”

“Eventually,” Jack added. “Initially, Daniel had some arguments about returning to the SGC to work on some translations, but he ultimately went along with the others.” With him. Jack had laid it out in front of Daniel. Either they all stay or they all go back. And down-time meant down-time, not working long into the night squinting at squiggly writing and overdosing on caffeine. He squared his shoulders. “I thought it would do us some good. Get us out into the fresh air in a relatively safe and stable environment.”

Davis folded his hands on the table and leaned forward. “And how did that go, Colonel O’Neill?”

Screams. Blood. Feral snarls and fire and smoke. A boy sobbing. His best friend’s shrill cries. Jack’s mind skittered away from the images.

“At first, it went just fine. The team was welcomed, given freedom to poke our noses into anything and everything. We toured the artisans’ workshops, checked out some community meetings where grievances were addressed and fines were laid down. We sampled the food, met a bunch of nice families, listened and watched. We found the Ledarons at about the mid-1800s in technology and culture. Little House on the Prairie type stuff.” Jack twisted his own hands into a white-knuckled knot in his lap. “Good people.”

“What roles did your team take on?” Davis frowned and gave a half-hearted shake of his head. “What I mean is, where, among the Ledaron culture, did you find yourselves? What jobs or responsibilities did each member of your team take up?”

“Well, the kids – the young adult generation – practically adopted Teal’c as soon as we came through the ‘gate. The Ledarons had done a pretty good job of defeating all their natural enemies – wildlife, I mean. The humans were all descended from a couple of original families, apparently, and had no beefs with each other. One for all and all for one and all that.” Jack nodded to himself. “The young guys were badly in need of discipline and distraction – they had nothing to fight, no one to play the usual testosterone fueled ‘king of the hill’ games with but each other. Nayati and his wife, Wanna, were up to their ears in petty thefts, property destruction, and the typical teen-aged idiocy of alcohol abuse and hair-trigger outbursts. Turned out all they needed was one tough Jaffa’s hand-to-hand training and a settlement-wide wrestling tournament.” He smiled to himself. “After a couple of raised eyebrows and a taste of Jaffa strength and cunning, the kids were eating it up with a spoon.”

Davis’ demeanor didn’t change. He barely looked down at the papers in front of him, just watched Jack. Watched him. Didn’t stare or glare or turn any kind of attitude towards the guy on trial. He watched. Above them, at the edge of Jack’s peripheral vision, Carter and Hammond were doing the same.

“Carter worked with the communication techs in The City and at the outlying posts.”

“’Communication techs?’ I thought the Ledarons had no tech to speak of.”

“Nothing we needed,” Jack explained. Davis knew this. They all knew this. Jack didn’t bother to go into detail or fill in every blank, after all, none of this was about Carter or Teal’c. This was just the preamble. The warm-up. “The beginnings of a kind of telegraph system using long, easily damaged wires. Carter was helping them develop some rudimentary insulation with indigenous clay. Since the main community had grown too big to support itself, family groups were being urged to create satellite communities, just far enough away to give them some breathing room. Room for crops and livestock that could support another city at some point in the future. Perfecting some kind of long-distance communication was a priority.”

“So they were homesteading?”

“Yep.” Jack tugged on his jacket. “Yes. In fact, about a week after we arrived one group set off. Six young families. The land had already been cleared, crops planted, livestock herded. Big party,” Jack motioned with both hands. “Kinda like the parents sending the kids off to college.” Sure. A college a good twelve hours away riding hard, filled with kids and women and people with absolutely no idea what kinds of dangers they were walking into. Jack swallowed hard against the bile edging up his throat.

“And Doctor Jackson decided to travel with them?”

Daniel had been Jack’s last chicken looking for his roost. For a while Jack had been worried that Daniel would never find a ‘happy place’ on good ole PCR-787. With no ancient ruins or funky old writing to fuss over, Daniel had been at loose ends for the first few days, annoyingly following Teal’c or Carter or even Jack around before they shooed him away.

Nayati had been the one to see it. About Jack’s age, the Headman had seen the tension among Jack’s team, had watched Daniel flit here and there around the community without settling. And then one day he’d introduced Daniel to his son, Enapay, and his pregnant wife and eight-year-old kid. Cute kid. Iye. They were among the homesteaders eager to set off for the horizon, and happy to include Daniel as a strong back and quick mind within their group. The archaeologist, the student of ancient cultures, had volunteered his expertise in digging post holes and civic engineering of things like wells and aqueducts and property lines.

Jack had figured the scrawniest toddler growing up on a frontier like this one could probably teach his over-educated teammate a thing or two. But, Daniel had surprised him before, and he could always teach Enapay to make moonshine.

“Yes. Daniel went with the homesteaders.” Enough said.

“And what kind of risk assessment had you done before splitting up your team and sending them all off in different directions, Colonel?”

Anger joined the guilt bubbling around in Jack’s gullet. His eyes half-lidded, he stared at Davis across the table. “None.” He gave the word weight and depth. Enunciated perfectly. “Absolutely none.”

Davis took a deep breath, hands folded on the neat pages in front of him. “Let’s back up, Colonel O’Neill. When, in your estimation, did things begin to go wrong?”

Jack pressed his lips together, resolved to stay professional. To keep his temper and go along with the major’s questions. To do just what he needed to do and tell them the damned story. 

“Colonel? Would you like me to rephrase the question?”

“No,” he snapped. He lifted his hands from his lap and laid them on the table. “No, that won’t be necessary. Things started to go wrong, Major, when I forgot that I was the commander of a military unit on an alien planet where anything could and probably would go wrong, and acted like it was just a nice vacation. When I let my teammates split up and go off on their separate adventures with no thought of covering our asses.” He found himself leaning forward, his voice getting louder and louder, his muscles clenched into steel cords. “It all went to hell when I let my damned exhaustion and frustration put distance between me and Daniel and Carter and Teal’c and, as their commanding officer, I forgot that the Goa’uld weren’t the only enemies out there. That’s when ‘things began to go wrong.’ And they kept right on going wrong until Daniel was shot, with my gun, and we dragged him back here barely alive.”


	11. Chapter 11

Diana Leoni kept up a steady stream of talk as Daniel and Teal’c exited the Stargate and, Daniel was beginning to believe, she could possibly keep it up all the way to the Durrian village. She was excited. Eager. It was her first chance to truly interact with an alien culture since she’d joined SG-11 as their anthropologist and now she had another scientist to share it with. Daniel was surprised by his reaction. His impatience. His frustration. After all, Diana was channeling him – the Daniel Jackson of three years ago. Trotting at Jack’s side, words and theories and discoveries leaping out into the still air, blotting out any natural sounds of the unexploited world around them.

He could not believe how much he wanted her to shut up.

Blind to anything but her words, Daniel couldn’t look around, tuning Dr. Leoni out as he would have done before, excited to make his own assessments of forest age, path building, and the give and take of SG-11’s expressions and movements. Now, of course, he couldn’t focus on the sweep of the landscape, feel the aura of the surroundings, or watch the light of the alien sun filter through leaves to brush against skin and glimmer on strangely-shaped ferns or the edge of a cornerstone or broken pot peeking up through the soil. He couldn’t lose himself in the natural sounds of wind and water, of the tiny beasts and birds that made this forest their home. With the anthropologist’s voice droning on and on beside him, Daniel felt himself muffled. Wrapped in a thick coating of modern Earth, of the SGC, of science and speculation and academia. It made him feel lost, unbalanced, as if the world beneath his feet was trying its best to throw him back through the Stargate. He stumbled and a pinching grip around his arm jerked him even more off-center, towards her.

“Doctor Jackson, are you all right?”

He didn’t think. Didn’t assure her that he was fine. He didn’t smile, or duck his head, or pat her clutching hand and explain that he was having trouble focusing.

He reacted.

Right hand dropping his cane, Daniel struck out, aiming for where his attacker’s elbow should be. He’d smash it outwards, targeting the cluster of nerves there before he followed up with a kick to the knee. Go for the weak spot, overbalance her, get her to let go, let him go, damn it, back the hell off and –

The solid bulk of his teammate stepped into Daniel’s body, a wall of muscle and bone between Daniel and the scientist, the edge of his attack absorbed by Teal’c’s chest. “Please remove your hand, Doctor Leoni,” the Jaffa urged, his voice quiet but insistent. “And please precede us to the Durrian village.”

“But – I don’t –" Her fingers squeezed tighter and Daniel felt his chest constrict in parallel, his breath wheezing in the thick, wet air.

Her hold was abruptly gone. “Now, Doctor Leoni.” The growl rumbled through Teal’c’s chest and up Daniel’s arm.

“Williams, stay with Teal’c and Doctor Jackson.” Boots thudded against the hard-packed dirt of the forest path. “C’mon, Doc. Let’s go on ahead and let our hosts know that guests are on their way.”

Daniel tilted his head, mapping the pair’s retreat as Major Godwin herded the stammering woman away. Her words faded, rising and falling against the silent landscape until they were gone and Daniel felt like he could breathe again.

Teal’c didn’t move. Didn’t back away. Somewhere behind them, Captain Williams was still. Waiting. Daniel took a deep breath and chewed on his reactions. His unease. “I should –" he began, frowning.

Teal’c’s hand rested lightly on Daniel’s chest. “We are not late, Daniel Jackson. Nor is there a rigid timetable to our mission. There is no ‘should’ among us.”

Daniel snatched his hand from Teal’c’s chest to latch onto his aching forehead. Eyes closed, he tried to will away the pain, the frustration, and the total loss of control. What was he doing? Attacking a colleague? Since when was striking out his first response to something uncomfortable? This wasn’t right – this wasn’t him – maybe he shouldn’t have come – 

“Daniel Jackson.” 

Teal’c did not scold him. Did not push or pull or demand. He simply moved and Daniel, struggling for his center, moved with him. A moment later they were both seated on what felt like a thick tree trunk, the forest’s sounds coming back to life all around them.

Beyond the throbbing pain, outside the borders of his body, Daniel heard the birds of this alien world begin to sing. Small creatures skittered in the dirt, claws scraped against bark and rock. A low gurgling sound turned his head to the right to follow the rush of a stream, the movement bringing his face into a warm ray of sunshine. He sighed.

Williams shifted his considerable weight behind them, but Teal’c must have done something – raised a hand, shaken his head, or aimed one of his own weighty glares in the officer’s direction – because the airman did not speak. Didn’t ask any of the annoyingly repetitive questions he’d heard far too many times over the past eight months. Are you okay? Do you need help? Should I get Dr. Frasier?

No, he seethed. Snapped. Growled. Silently, internally, Daniel screamed. If he needed something, he’d ask for it. Make a call. Send a voicemail. Open his mouth like the adult human being he was. Blindness hadn't stolen his intelligence or his determination or his capability to live his life. Fury surged down his nerves, racing like a fire along a trail of gasoline. It lit up red behind his eyelids, blazing in time with the jagged stabs of pain. He shook, his arms and legs like jelly, jaw muscles tightening until he feared for his teeth. He’d never been this angry. Not when he'd faced Apophis. Not when his sarcophagus addiction had scrambled his brains. Not when Jack slapped him in the face with his “unfounded” friendship, or when the Gamekeeper threw his parents’ deaths at him again and again. This was primal, unthinking wrath. 

Why did he think coming through the Stargate would be his saving? A happy trip down memory lane? All it had done was remind him of everything he wasn’t – all the things he couldn’t do. Everything he’d lost. Poor Diana had been his last straw. He imagined her mouth dropping open, eyes wide in …

Stunned, Daniel sat, shoulders slumped, chin falling to rest against his chest, the sudden anger draining away from every pore to water the alien planet’s soil. Daniel had never seen Diana Leoni’s face. He didn’t know what she looked like. What color her eyes were. Whether she habitually scowled, forehead creased as she studied tiny lines of script, or, maybe she smiled, overjoyed by the idea of discovery, her eyes alight with hope. She was a blank. A gripping hand. A high-pitched voice. 

His blindness had stolen more than sight. More than his job, his calling, his reason for living. It had erected a thick black wall around his being. Shifted his center of gravity. And ripped away his ability to interact with others. What possible good could he do with the Durrians? With any culture out here among the stars if he couldn’t even relate to his colleagues?

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “And I’ll apologize to Doctor Leoni when we meet up.” He breathed deep of the strangely scented air. “I guess this is making it all a little too real. A little too,” he waved one hand in front of his chest, “final.”

Beside him, Teal’c remained still, but, somehow it felt to Daniel as if he moved closer. 

“You have hidden your fears, your anger, from yourself as well as from your friends, Daniel Jackson. You have hidden the bottomless grief of your losses.” Teal’c paused. “The secret horror of a lifetime of darkness, of emptiness stretching out in front of you.”

Daniel’s trembling grew, his nail-biting control chipping away with every one of Teal’c’s words.

“Over the years you have taught me much,” Teal’c continued. “Much about your world. Much about your history and beliefs. You have taught me of faith and loyalty and courage of the spirit as well as of the body. You told me once that a man’s fears, his emotions, do not mark him as weak. As less than a man. You shared my fears for my son. My grief at Shaun’ac’s ending. My shame and guilt at the Cor’ai. And you did not for a moment judge me.”

Eyes closed, Daniel painted the scenes Teal’c described across his memory. Teal’c had lost so much. Had been forced to tear his own soul into pieces at the order of Apophis. “You’re a good man, Teal’c.”

“I am Jaffa. An incubator for a Goa’uld.”

“You are so much more than that,” Daniel replied, a familiar argument. “You are a strong soul.”

“If I am strong, Daniel Jackson, it is only because I have friends; brothers and sisters, who will speak truth to me in the dark places. Who will remain strong for me when I am weak. And who, I know, will never leave my side. Just as I will never leave yours.” 

With a quiet sob, Daniel let go. He felt the last trace of his self-control tear loose and he did not try to stop it. Tears fell from his ruined eyes. Tears of bitterness and anger and frustration. Of pain and loss. Of the end of his travels through the Stargate – the end of his life as it had been. The end of a friendship that had stood at the center of his being. The end of SG-1. Of the team. Of his family. He wasn’t Daniel Jackson, explorer, diplomat, teammate anymore. 

“I’m blind, Teal’c,” he whispered, his voice weak, shaking.

“You are, my friend. But just as Jaffa is not all that I am, a blind man is not all you are.” 

No. Daniel knew that. He could still help. He could still be of some use to his friends, to the SGC. But it would never be the same.

The awakening forest seemed to soothe Daniel’s pain; the warmth of the sunlight easing his burdens. After a time he found himself quieting, listening, taking in the smallest sounds, the most delicate scents, the barest graze of the wind across his heated cheeks. Peace settled within him. A peace he had rarely felt before. The peace of ancient things, of deep roots, and the strength of survival. Long winters of sleep giving way to summer, to renewal, to growth, and wisdom.

To the beauty of simple things. A drop of dew. A chittering animal. A fluttering leaf.

“Um, heads up. We have company.”

Beside him, Teal’c rose at Williams’ words, but Daniel knew the two traveling towards them were friends. New friends of an old race. Very old.

“It’s okay, Captain,” Daniel smiled. “I think I’m ready.”

“Ready, Daniel Jackson?”

Daniel held up his right arm and his teammate grasped it, hand to forearm, and helped haul him upright. Daniel kept the familiar hold for a long moment, blind eyes staring into exactly where he knew Teal’c’s to be. “Ready to meet our hosts. The Durrians.”

The strokes and angles of the Durrian language rose up to catch at Daniel’s memory and imagination. L shapes, curved along one side. Dots. Circles. Certainty slotted into place. An ancient forest. The smell of leaf mould, the feel of warm rain on his face. Gold glyphs on a stone wall. A chamber lined with other texts, other alien writing. “Oh,” he whispered. Of course. “Yes, Teal’c. I’m ready.” Ready to go on. To solve another puzzle. To step out into his future.  
Williams stirred at his side. “Ready? Ready to go back? To the SGC?”

Teal’c gripped Daniel’s arm in the manner of one Jaffa brother greeting another. “No. Daniel Jackson will not go back. He will go on.” He steadied Daniel and turned with him to greet the Durrians. “He will go on.”

To make new friends and new memories.


	12. Chapter 12

“In your own words, Colonel.”

Jack swallowed the bile and let his thoughts rush back to Ledaro. To the taste of fresh air in his lungs and the feel of clenched anger dissipating across his chest. To the warm, wooden buildings, the sound of horses’ hoofs on the tamped earth, and the sweet smell of newly shorn hay. To peace, and fishing, and not an enemy in sight. Not right away.

_Nayati was late. Jack peeled the Velcro cover from his watch and tapped the face as if to jog the minute hand backwards. Nope. He scanned the riverbank again and then drew his line through the water with a lazy back and forth glide. The water was flat calm, the short, spindly trees green, and the sky a funny shade of puce. Not quite Minnesota, but close enough._

_Nice people. They didn’t talk too much, bore no hostility towards visitors, and, more importantly, no familiarity with nor interest in the Goa’uld. All that coupled with absolutely no prodding from the US Government’s ranks of the high and the mighty to acquire technology or Intel or anything made Jack O’Neill a happy camper. He smiled down at his fishing rod and bare feet - almost literally._

_Nayati and his people had nothing. Nothing but frontier weapons out of the old west, a fledgling kind of Morse code/telegraph system, and some dimwitted fish who seemed to leap onto Jack’s hook. For a change, nobody cared about skin color, party politics, or promoting an ‘agenda.’ For a change, Jack could take off his rat-bastard commander hat and offer the Ledarons some basic help without worrying about getting it shoved up his own … mikta. After the seething stress of the past few months, the team had been able to get some distance. Take a breath. Recharge their batteries._

_Jack stretched out his legs, feet dangling in the cool water. Carter was on a tour of the telegraph outposts with a few of The City’s finest minds. Nice, Jack nodded to himself. With only one center of population, no need for a tongue-twisting name. It was the oldest, biggest settlement and center of progress – or what passed for progress here. Carter was helping them with the insulation for the wires that tied the homes and farms together. Up to her elbows in science, Carter was happier than he’d seen her in quite a while._

_The young kids had adopted Teal’c almost as soon as they’d stepped through the ‘gate – or maybe his Jaffa buddy had adopted them. As minions. Human mini-me’s. Stoic was a hard look for these outgoing kids to pull off, but they were standing straighter and taking some pride in serving the littler ones coming up after them – and their community – instead of getting into trouble. Nayati and his wife, Wanna, were pretty pleased with the improvised hand-to-hand combat classes slash community wide wrestling tournament Teal’c had instated. No more fights, no more petty crimes or ‘who was the bigger bad-ass’ shenanigans. Yep, the younger generation of Ledarons was shaping up nicely._

_And that left only one. For a while, Jack had worried that Daniel would never find his happy place on good ole PCR-787. With no ancient ruins or funky old writing to fuss over, Daniel had been at loose ends for the first few days, annoyingly following T or Carter or even Jack around before they shooed him away._

_Luckily, Nayati’s son and his wife were just about to set out with a bunch of other young families to set up a new homestead at the edge of the wilderness and Jack had volunteered his archaeologist as a strong back and youthful energy the group of settlers needed. And while the group finalized their inventories and counted and re-counted supplies, livestock, and kids, Daniel acquired his own annoying little follower. Iye, eight years old going on fifty, had no end of questions about Daniel’s world, and an even more bottomless supply of “hey, guess what’s” to toss up for Daniel’s volley. The curly headed blond kid chased Daniel from one end of The City to the other, barely letting Jack’s teammate sleep – and Jack loved it._

_Daniel would be put to work clearing fields and digging post holes – something the archaeologist had always claimed were skills learned by every beginning student on his first dig. Jack figured the scrawniest toddler growing up on a frontier like this one could probably teach his over-educated teammate a thing or two, but Daniel had surprised him before. Jack kinda wished he could be a fly on the wall watching, especially with Iye jogging his teammate’s elbow. Hilarious._

_Jack tucked the end of his fishing rod beneath one bent knee and picked up the fine flintlock Nayati had given him. He shook his head, callused hands stroking the silky, hand-smoothed wood of the stock and the cast alloy of the barrel. Crude but effective. Give a man a new planet, some saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal, enough iron ore to smelt, and a little ingenuity and he’d figure out how to build a better weapon. Everywhere. Every planet, every culture they’d ever met where the people had the freedom to develop and weapons were there. Except maybe the Nox. No hunting, no fishing, no predators they couldn’t handle. But he’d bet his last pair of socks that sometime, back in their past, before they had the smarts to build that floating city or meet up with the Asgard and the other enemies of the Goa’uld, the little guys had done pretty well in the weapons department._

_At least there wouldn’t be any high-minded qualms about trading weapons or ‘influencing native progress’ on Ledaro. Heck, Hammond had even sent through some basic pump-action shot guns for hunting the birds Nayati and his buddies called pentilles. Jack’s stomach growled. Hopefully Wanna had packed them some of the grilled birds from last night for Nayati’s lunch. If the guy ever showed up._

_Voices – more than one – announced Jack’s visitors before the disturbances in the undergrowth registered. He turned, managing to catch his fishing rod before he dumped it in the river._

_“Hey, what’s with the –"_

_“O’Neill. Hurry. We need your help.”_

_Nayati was pale and out of breath, his wife and one of the other Ledaron leaders from The City racing along the path on either side. Jack caught the stink of fear and sweat on the air, and the distant whinny of horses. Scenarios appeared in Jack’s mind. Goa’uld ships. Jaffa through the Stargate. Fire. Sickness. Sums wrote themselves across his imagination even as he stuffed his feet into his boots and slung the rifle over his shoulder. Distances. Logistics. One hand went for his left shoulder, to grab the radio and have his team report in. It caught … nothing._

_“We thought we had routed them – burnt out any nesting grounds close enough to be a threat.” Nayati grabbed Jack’s arms, his eyes too wide, breath hitching. “My son – his family –"_

_“What are we talking about here?” Jack demanded, shifting his gaze from his friend’s face to Wanna’s tear-filled eyes. All of her laughter, the lightness that regularly warmed Jack’s heart was gone. Her black and silver hair was scraped back from her high forehead into one thick braid, her intricately woven dress put aside for a pair of her husband’s breeches and a plain, long-sleeved tunic. This wasn’t the Headman’s wife. This was a warrior._

_“Skirka. A commune of skirka has attacked the new settlement. Your Major Carter relayed the message when Oliyan made it to the way station. Blood – he was covered in blood –"_

_Inyu, First Follower under Nayati and father of two of the new settlers – Oliyan and his brother Ahtaka – snapped his mouth closed and lifted his head, watching Jack’s reaction closely. Inyu had been the most hesitant of the Ledarons to welcome SG-1, but he’d come around. Now, dressed in well-worn skin pants and tunic, and armed with an array of knives shoved into crossed bracers on his chest, the man was clearly swallowing his pride to ask for help._

_“Skirka –"Jack remembered the drawings in The City’s archives. The models in the kids’ schoolhouse. Something like a cross between a wolf and a bobcat standing five feet at the shoulder. Who the hell could miss a nest of those things? Could think of sending families – children –_

_“My Oliyan - he’s alive – barely – but the beasts have killed eight and will likely attack again at dusk.” Inyu clutched his rifle and then waved it back over his shoulder. “We must hurry. A hunting band led by your man Teal’c has already gone. Good boys, they were closest. But, will you come, O’Neill? Help us?”_

_“Please. Please. Our children –"_

_Jack was already moving, running flat out before Nayati could finish his sentence, the Headman hustling to catch up._

_“Any word from Daniel?” Out of range, well out of range, damn it. Even if he had his radio with him, the signal would never reach beyond the foothills between them and the new settlement. The foothills where Carter waited at the relay station. He bit back a curse aimed squarely at his own stupidity. No vest, no pack, no P90 – what could go wrong on this nice, peaceful planet? Why bother to follow procedure and drag the dead weight along with him, or keep in contact with his teammates? He increased his pace. He couldn’t even blame Teal’c for taking off without a word. Or an order._

_“Your friend lives. He sent a message with my Oliyan – here –" Inyu shoved a torn-off piece of paper into Jack’s hands, the message scrawled hastily in the shaking hand of The City's telegraph receiver._

_Jack took a second to read it, one foot in the stirrup, murmuring calming noises towards his skittish mount. “Skirka X 10. Feral. Killed 2, 8 dropped back. Bring ammo. Put SGC on alert – casualties. Zats useless.” His thumb rubbed over a dark stain in one corner. Sweat. Tears._

_Hauling himself into the saddle, he shortened the reins and checked the others. “Weapons?” He shoved the rifle into its sling along the horse’s shoulder._

_“Teal’c took the weapons. All the shotguns your people sent, save this one,” Nayati puffed, pointing to his mount. “He made us to bring your rifle, pack, and vest.” He nodded at the blanket-covered mound riding just south of Jack’s butt. “I hope it is enough.”_

_Relief loosened Jack’s muscles and he snatched one corner of the blanket from the bundle to eyeball the vest and P90 – and radio – and his tightly zipped pack. “Good. Great.” He smiled his thanks. “The settlers took a couple of the shotguns, right?” Daniel’s pistol plus the other men and women’s private weapons. Not to mention picks and shovels and knives. Apparently, it was not nearly enough._

_He hitched up in his saddle and clucked to his horse. Enough talk. He’d figure out the rest when he got there. He had until dusk. Twelve hours. Six until they would be at Carter’s relay station to get fresh mounts and, hopefully, get within radio range. He leaned over his horse’s neck, plastering himself to the galloping animal’s skin._

_“Stay alive, Daniel,” he muttered. “You’d better damn well stay alive.”_

_Carter was ready for them at the relay station, BDUs a little wrinkled from her pack but armed to the teeth, the latest message in her hands. Prepped and focused, every inch the veteran 2IC Jack relied on. The sight of her flipped off one of the droning alarms in the back of Jack’s mind, the ones labeled Team Safety. One accounted for. Whole. Safe. And raring to go. Thank God._

_Fresh horses were waiting for Jack and the others. Teal’c and his boys had come through three hours before, dropping off their mounts and picking up fresh ones, leaving two of the youngest kids to see to the animals and man the station. Good idea, Jack thought, narrowed eyes blinking away the grit of the trail to focus on the skinny teenagers. You don’t take children into a fight._

_He threw himself from his horse and left the gear-switching to the kids, grabbing the nearest bucket of water from beside the pump and dumping it over his head. He shook his head, tore the bandana from around his neck and mopped at his streaming face and eyes. “Report, Carter,” he barked, his voice rough, words carving jagged trenches through his dry throat._

_Handing him a leather flask of water, Carter squared her shoulders. “There was another runner an hour ago. He wasn’t injured, but told us about an attack mid-morning – no casualties. Daniel has convinced the settlers to wait for reinforcements. With only two buildings up and secured, the families have taken shelter in the barn and the Hall – it’s where the children had been sleeping. Some are arguing about the need to turn out the livestock to make room for the settlers.” She rubbed one hand across her forehead. “So far, Daniel has been successful in reminding them that the people cannot be replaced.”_

_Jack’s jaw ached from clenching. “That’s our boy.” He took another long drink. “What else?”_

_“They wounded another of the skirka during the mid-morning rush, but its cries seemed to have whipped the others into a frenzy. They can hear them, howling and snarling. And it sounds like more might have joined them.” She forced regret from her eyes, back straightening. “No excuse, sir, but I left my radio …”_

_“Later, Carter,” Jack growled, the blame heaping up like lead weights along his shoulders. “Plenty of time to kick ourselves in the ass when we’re all safe back at the SGC.”_

_“Yes, sir.”_

_Carter was hurrying along at Jack’s side now, replacing his empty water skin with another. “After I got Inyu’s reply from The City, I sent word to Hilla, the Communication Manager –"_

_“I remember her,” Jack sighed, picturing the old woman, her crooked fingers still faster than any of her apprentices’ on the switches._

_“I asked her to dial up the SGC and send word to Hammond. Obviously, any S &R party will be far behind us, but Janet has already set up a triage area and med tent for the wounded.” She turned towards the orange sun making its way down the arc of the sky. “Based on my calculations, we’ve got five hours of riding ahead of us. Six to sunset. But the skirka might not wait that long.”_

_Jack braced both arms on his newly saddled mount, stretching out his spine, dancing out the pins and needles of his legs. He swallowed the rest of the water and tossed the empty skin to the dirt before reaching under the blanket and hauling out his radio. This time it would work. This time he would make contact with a very alive, very annoyed Daniel._

_“SG-1 niner to SG-1. Daniel? Report. Over.”_

_“Good to hear your voice, Jack. I hope you remembered to pack the mountain bikes you’re always threatening to get approval for. Oh, and the bazookas.”_

_Jack dropped his forehead against one arm, letting Daniel’s voice bring its own sense of peace. “Yeah, I blame Hammond’s shortsightedness for not equipping all SG teams with them. Dirt bikes. Not bazookas.” He lifted his thumb for a second before pressing the send button again. “Bazookas? Really?”_

_“Sorry, it’s the only giant weapon I could think of.”_

_Other voices in the background nearly drowned out Daniel’s reply. Angry voices. “What the hell is going on, Daniel?”_

_“Oh, nothing much. Just some irritated men deciding to use the last hours of daylight to go hunting.”_

_Jack straightened, nearly knocking Carter off her feet with the abruptness of his actions. “No. Repeat. Do not leave the buildings, dammit. Acknowledge. Do you hear me, Jackson?”_

_“Hey, hey, preaching to the choir, here, Jack. But the bass and tenor sections have me outnumbered.”_

_Nayati, already mounted and itching to be off shifted his horse closer. “Is Enapay there? Speak to him, O’Neill. Tell my son I forbid it!”_

_One hand raised to fend off the Headman’s shouts, Jack leaned over the mic as if his looming presence could make a difference. “Did you hear that? Relay that message, Daniel.”_

_The delay was unbearable. Finally, Daniel’s too-upbeat, strongly ironic voice returned. “Unfortunately, Enapay states that he is the Headman of The Settlement.” Jack heard the capital letters. “And that Nayati is the one who named him so. So, he’s allowed to make whatever stupid, senseless rules that he wants to.”_

_“Damn it.”_

_“I have been delegated to stay with the women and children. Well, some of the women. As you know, there are a lot of formidable warriors among the women here. But I’ve convinced them to let me keep my sidearm for protection while they rush off to get themselves killed.”_

_Jack stared out into the flat horizon, willing time to stop, to slow, or at least for his vision to zoom in to let him see what was going on so many miles away. At the corner of his eye he glimpsed movement and he watched Inyu leave the relay station and stumble to his mount. Wanna looked on stoically as the younger man wiped the tears from his face and touched the hilts of his knives strapped to his chest. Jack turned back to Carter, frowning._

_“Oliyan died two hours ago. There just wasn’t –“ She shook her head._

_Jack clutched the radio to him. “Okay, Daniel. Teal’c should be with you soon. And Carter and I are on the way. Hang in there. And try to get those idiots to calm down and see reason.” Jack took a deep breath. “You can do it if anyone can. Talking down aggressive-types with bad attitudes is kinda your calling.”_

_“Will do. Be careful coming in. These skirka are tough and smart.”_

_“Don’t worry about us.” Jack hauled himself back into the saddle, a sharp stab of envy going through him as he watched Carter practically leap into hers. Like a damned gazelle. “Keep your head down. SG-1 niner out.”_


	13. Chapter 13

Alceis bowed at the open doorway, one hand gesturing Daniel Jackson and Teal’c into the Durrians’ home. She was a tall woman, with narrow shoulders and a matching lean face, as if she’d been drawn by some god’s hand with a few meager straight lines and angles. Her husband, Xidamus, seemed at first look a perfect contrast – as round and soft as his wife was upright and formidable, but both smiled with genuine warmth and a certain amused twinkle in their brown eyes that reminded Teal’c of O’Neill.

Since the two Durrians had met them in the forest, Daniel Jackson had recovered well from his nurishka – his darkness of spirit. Teal’c was not so foolish as to believe that the great weight of his brother’s losses had been completely lifted, but this day had been long in coming, this day of sincere grief. And now, perhaps, Daniel Jackson could begin healing, and prepare to meet the future that welcomed him. Teal’c nodded with gratitude as he passed within the dwelling – the welcome of these two alien people, the forthright way in which they had greeted his blind friend, and the simple honesty of their words had provided a soothing beginning.

Daniel Jackson had been quiet beneath the gentleness of these aliens. Soft-spoken. As if, behind his blindness he weighed and measured the two, their culture, and the language he had barely begun to study. The names meant something to the scholar – had lifted his chin and settled a smile across his lips.

“Alceis? There is a woman named Alceis in our mythology, the stories of one of the greatest civilizations on our planet. One that had a great influence down the centuries and that still defines much of our modern culture.” Daniel Jackson laughed softly. “In our stories, her husband was named Alexidamus. He won her hand by beating all others in a race.”

The portly man chuckled, clutching at his belly and turning adoring eyes on his wife. “How delightful. I am happy that I was not that man. Indeed, I would not have minded trying, but I’m afraid…”

“I’m afraid I would have been stuck with some well-muscled but empty-headed fool instead of you, my dear one.” Alceis briefly linked hands with her husband before they struck off through the forest, one on either side of his teammate. 

Teal’c had seen his friend and teammate make intuitive leaps before, his very being trembling with excitement on the strength of his discoveries, words and theories leaping from his lips. This was different. Teal’c did not believe it was the loss of his sight that served to muffle Daniel Jackson’s reaction. No. He sensed there was something more at work here. Something he would take great care to watch for and analyze. 

Alceis and Xidamus had neatly disposed of Doctor Leoni and SG-11’s military escort as the group approached the small cluster of rough, hand-crafted homes set within an old forest clearing. The man had made much of a soreness in his back, requesting Captain Williams’ help in corralling some milk animals while Alceis turned the chattering archaeologist towards a distant hill on which Teal’c could just make out the vine-covered remains of an ancient tower.

“I don’t know if we can expect your Daniel to make the climb up to the Noasi. Perhaps you might bring a few of the smaller striae for him to touch? Yes?” Nodding, Alceis had smiled and gestured the woman away, Teal’c meeting Major Godwin’s eyes over her head and officially accepting responsibility for his teammate’s health and safety before the major would leave the two members of SG-1 alone. As if that had ever been in question, Teal’c thought to himself. Whether SG-11 stood near or far, Teal’c would not allow harm to come to his brother. His hands tightened on his rifle. That was a simple fact. 

Within the flower decorated hut, another person awaited. Dressed in woven tunic and breeches as were the others, this one wore his simple clothing as if they were royal robes, his youth and strength not the only obvious difference between the teen and his … parents? Guardians? Teal’c raised an eyebrow at the boy’s haughty stance, maneuvering himself until he stood between the teen and his teammate.

“Daniel. Teal’c. This is Phax, our anhyion. Please, sit, while we bring you from our world's bounty.”

Teal’c managed a hesitant nod in the young man’s direction as their hosts bustled away, but Daniel Jackson’s smile was wide and knowing.

“Anhyion. Something like a nephew or ward.” His smile quirked higher. “Phax. I would guess that you have a lot of questions and concerns about the SGC’s presence here.” Daniel Jackson stood where Teal’c had steered him, white cane held loosely in both hands, facing just to the left of where the young Durrian stood.

Eyes narrowed, the young man swept a long braid of fiery leaves over one shoulder and crossed his arms over his chest. “I do. Your people carry many weapons. They threaten our lives, our home. Would you not have concerns if travelers came to your home bearing hate and injury in their hands?”

Turning his head, Teal’c regarded the insolent youth. “Who of our people has threatened you?”

The boy waved one hand through the air as if dismissing Teal’c’s interpretation of his tirade. “We are threatened by the violence that runs through your blood and dresses you in costumes of war.”

Waiting for his teammate to speak, to say the words Teal’c had heard so many times before when SG-1 faced a suspicious group of aliens, Teal’c was surprised at Daniel Jackson’s silence. The blind man tilted his head to one side as if weighing Phax’s words on some scale only he could see, long fingers lifting from the handle of the cane as if he quested for information through the air.

“Foolishness.”

Xidamus was already shaking his head as he reentered the room, his crown of ivy and tiny yellow flowers shifting loosely to tilt down over one ear. He placed a tray of fruits and nuts on a large flat stump that served as a table and moved to Daniel Jackson’s side. “Forgive my anhyion, please, Daniel. He should know better than to leave guests standing. May I…”

The Durrians had been careful with Daniel Jackson, asking permission to touch him, to lead him or take him by the hand as if dealing with a blind man was an everyday occurrence here. His teammate nodded and lifted his left arm so that Xidamus could help him into a nearby chair made of woven willow. Teal’c considered the empty seat to its right, noting its fragile construction, and decided to remain standing.

“Phax’s father has taught the young man much about the outside world. About its hazards and those who would try to change us from who we are into who they would like us to be.” Xidamus patted Daniel Jackson on the shoulder. “Alceis and I would rather teach honesty and compassion.”

“Is that why his father sent him to you?” Daniel Jackson asked. “For tutoring?”

Xidamus leaned backward, hands linked across his belly. “I rather think it was in the hope that Phax would share more of his father’s teachings with us, actually.” His smile was wide. “It has not had the results that he would have hoped.”

Teal’c turned back to examine the young man once again. “I would like to meet your father,” he stated. The Durrians were kind, open-hearted. Teal’c would also counsel some constraint. Guarded suspicion. “Not all those who travel through the chapp’ai seek your friendship. Others would use the weapons they bear to enslave you, to take all that is useful from your world.”

Phax’s eyes narrowed. “So my father teaches us. The writings of our ancestors must surely speak of these things.”

Teal’c turned back to his teammate.

“Perhaps. But, to be honest,” Daniel Jackson twisted the links of his white cane and folded it into sections that settled tight against each other, “I hope the tablets you sent me speak of other things. Of your peoples’ history. Of their hopes and dreams, their discoveries about the universe and the world around them.”   
“As do we, Daniel.” Alceis walked slowly towards them, intent on the very full kettle she held between mittened hands. The steam smelled strongly of herbs and roots. Teal’c reached out to assist her, taking the heavy pot and depositing it where a solid wooden stand scarred with overlapping rings of scorch marks awaited it.

“I’d like to get to know you all, first, anyway,” Daniel Jackson replied, sitting forward on his chair, face turning as if he could follow the Durrian woman’s movements. “Before you send for the others.”

Teal’c frowned. What ‘others’ did Daniel Jackson speak of? Villagers? Scholars? How did he know these people had sent for anyone? Teal’c watched, but it seemed that his teammate’s remarks were strange only to him. “What others are these?”

The tall woman touched Teal’c on one shoulder as she passed. “Friends, Teal’c. Only friends. Those who would speak with the Tau’ri, with Daniel in particular. And, perhaps you will get your wish to meet Phax’s father.” Small, irregularly shaped platters of native wood were passed from hand to hand, filled by Alceis from the steaming kettle. Xidamus placed one of a different shape – with raised edges - in Daniel Jackson’s lap, guiding his fingers to find the spoon. Teal’c would have moved to aid his friend, but he was not needed. Instead, he shifted to stand between those within and the door. If others were indeed coming, they would find Teal’c on guard.

The young man eyed Teal’c, setting his plate aside as he dragged another wooden seat nearer to where Daniel Jackson and Xidamus sat, his knees close enough to brush the old man’s. “You say you wish to get to know us. Why? To find out our secrets? To decide if you can twist and manipulate them with your destructive wills into weapons? And, if you find remnants of those things we do not wish to share,” he snorted with contempt, “will you tear them from us?”

“We did not tear from you the tablets you sent through the Stargate,” Teal’c answered, anxious to get the youth’s attention away from his teammate. 

“Of course not,” Xidamus agreed. “We have much we would share with your people.”

“But there is something you want more than anything else, isn’t there? Something you would grasp with both hands.” Phax clapped his palms together with a loud bang, rattling the platters on the table but, strangely, leaving Daniel Jackson unaffected. “That you would take, would you not, blind man?”

One step brought Teal’c near enough to reach the back of the young man’s neck, but his teammate’s raised hand stopped him. “It’s okay. Phax is only saying what we both know.”

Teal’c seethed. “I do not know, Daniel Jackson. Nor did I bring you here to be attacked, with words or with weapons. Perhaps we should take our leave.”

“Not yet, please,” the scholar faced Teal’c, his expression as intent, as demanding as ever, even behind the dark glasses. “These people have a lot to teach us, Teal’c. They always have.” He turned his head, tilting it as would a bird regarding its prey. “I won’t take anything you don’t freely offer, Phax. I hope you’ll accept my word on that.” 

“Your word, Daniel,” Alceis twisted to send a warm glance towards Teal’c, “or yours, warrior, have always been enough for us.” She sent a cautioning look towards Phax as she gracefully lowered herself to sit on the floor at Daniel Jackson’s feet. The woman reached forward to take one of his hands. “Daniel. You know who we are.”

He nodded. “Yes. And you know us. Or have heard of us.”

Alceis’ smile faltered. “We left our brothers and sisters long ago in order to pursue peace. To put war behind us while safeguarding the history of our people. And we have – we have put all the things of war, of technology, of strife and anger beyond our reach.”

“They had become too much a temptation for us,” Xidamus added.

“Yes. We renounced them wholly.”

“I thought your brothers and sisters did the same,” Daniel Jackson inquired.

The woman smoothed her hands along Daniel Jackson’s skin, palm and fingers, front and back. “They still cling to some devices. Our great city still floats among the clouds. The beasts and beings are protected by technological marvels, you would say.” 

Her movement was so quick that Teal’c did not have a chance to intercept her hand as she reached up and slid off Daniel Jackson’s glasses. 

Teal’c moved then, threw himself forward to snatch at her wrist, to tear the glasses from her hand, to protect his teammate. Or, he tried. He was held, motionless, trapped as if in amber, each muscle loose and unstrained within a cloud of liquid warmth. “Peace, Teal’c,” Phax’s voice came to him even as the young man turned serene brown eyes upon Teal'c's inner struggle. “Peace. Listen. Watch.”

Alceis’ voice went on, with no breath of hesitation or murmur of air to tell Teal’c’s teammate that all was not well. “And while our brothers and sisters have trusted you and your team, we must now ask you difficult questions. We must determine, for ourselves, your wisdom and strength. We must measure your honesty and your desire to truly grow into a culture of integrity. We must speak of violence and blame and guilt.”

Teal’c’s gut twisted, his hands relaxed at his sides as if his mind was not screaming at them to rise, to stop her, to stop this twisted game these Durrians were making of his friend, his brother. He would kill them all rather than have Daniel Jackson injured once again.

“Tell us of your injuries,” Xidamus whispered, touching one finger to a bright white scar beneath the scholar’s eye. “Who was at fault?”

Daniel Jackson shook his head. “No one. There was no fault, Xidamus. Just a stupid accident.” 

His voice trembled and Teal’c felt his own tears spring to life to echo his brother’s sorrow.

“Then why does one you call heart-friend and brother now sit on your home world accused of this crime?” Alceis held onto Daniel Jackson’s hand when he would have pulled it out of her grasp. “If your own heart-brother would harm one of his own, one set in his charge, then we cannot become friends of the Tau’ri. Such an act would stand between your people and ours.”

“He didn’t – Jack didn’t –"

“I must ask you for honesty, Daniel. Did your friend, the leader of your team, perform violence upon you?”

“No!”

Xidamus and Alceis nodded to one another. She lifted her right hand, taking Xidamus’ left, completing a circle that began at Daniel Jackson’s right hand, swept through the two Durrians, and then ended with Xidamus’ grip on his left shoulder. Power rippled gently around the circle and Daniel Jackson caught his breath. 

“Your mind and memory says no, Daniel. But what does your heart say? We must see.”

Teal’c could only watch and listen, as Phax had instructed him. He could only stare in impotent rage as his brother was enspelled by the two Durrians, those whom he had trusted, simple folk who made gifts of flowered bonnets and ancient tablets. Those who had made them welcome in the forest. Who now held Daniel Jackson in their hands. 

“Show us what happened, Daniel.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More artwork from eilidh17: http://40.media.tumblr.com/6e4afc4919c634fe23f8161d0cc9a6a3/tumblr_nxg0vyAUCH1qeo0l1o3_1280.png

_Jack heard the animals long before he saw the sharp outline of the settlement against the green-black sky. Nayati’s horse had stumbled a mile and a half out, forcing them to stop, to let the others breathe and stamp and shiver in the dusk. Jack had gritted his teeth against the delay, his eyes never stopping their search of the horizon. He’d checked in with Daniel, relayed their new ETA even as Wanna and Nayati bent their heads together in quick, fierce conversation. Inyu walked his horse in small circles while Carter rigged up the collapsible basin and poured in the last of their water. The horses needed it more than they did. They’d have a whole lot more than water to think about in a little while._

_“O’Neill. You and the others must go on.” Nayati was pulling the saddle and tack from Wanna’s horse, leaving just a woven blanket decorating its back, two rifle slings along the shoulders. “We will ride together from here. We will not slow you down.”_

_Jack nodded, watching the man’s hands flutter in and out of sight in the lowering darkness as he worked. “Good idea. The sooner we get there the better.”_

_“Especially as our son seems to have forgotten every bit of his training,” Wanna bit off, turning her head at the last minute so that the last word trailed off into the wind. “He is to protect his people, not lead them blindly into death.”_

_A shadow took shape at her words and crouched in Jack O’Neill’s soul, talons clutching tight. He rubbed his wrist across his mouth, smothering a snapping come-back that only his team would understand. His team. His people. Friends and comrades. Brother and sister warriors. Kids. Where exactly had all of Jack’s much vaunted military training brought them?_

_Nayati caught him by one arm before he could march away to take out his anger and frustration on some innocent rock or scraggly bush. The Headman shoved his revered shotgun into Jack’s hands. “O’Neill. I charge you now, as ally and friend, to go to our children. To beat back their enemies. To stand between them and death.” Dark eyes gleamed in the pale moonlight, pulsing with the Headman’s passion. “I trust you to do this.”_

_Shaking his head, Jack raised his own hand to clutch at Nayati’s shoulder. “I’m going to damn well do my best.”_

_He’d exchanged the flintlock he’d been carrying for the Earth-made shotgun, meeting Wanna’s tear-filled gaze one last time. They’d given the exhausted horses fifteen minutes and then moved out, Nayati and Wanna’s overloaded mount walking slowly in the rear. When Jack threw a glance back over his shoulder a few minutes later, all three had been swallowed up by the night. Facing forward again, Jack hunched his aching back lower and whispered. “C’mon, boy. You can do it. You can do it.”_

_He wasn’t quite sure who he was trying to encourage: himself, his horse, or, off in the distance, his teammate._

_There wasn’t any time to strategize. Nothing beyond Daniel’s radioed warning that Enapay and his men thought they’d trapped the rest of the skirka on the far side of the barn and that Teal’c was with them. The teens had been put to work carrying the injured back into the Hall and seeing that the fires were kept burning. The homesteaders had been able to set up some strategic bonfires – heaps of bright flames leaping up from piles of whatever they could find, by the look of it. Two sat front and center before the doors to the Hall, a simple square building where Daniel and the women and children were hunkered down. Six more fires trailed between the Hall and the barn, the only other building completely finished. The rough outline of other homes stood like skeletons around the trampled fields._

_Dead and wounded livestock made irregular lumps across the ground. Some had died pressed up against the barn doors, their panicked brains knowing there was safety behind those rough wooden planks. Others lay in ones and twos, bloody and steaming. A few flanks still rose and fell, quick gasps peppered by flailing legs struggling to rise._

_Jack’s eyes narrowed as he turned away from the light. Staring into the fires would be sure to ruin his night vision. “Carter – you and Inyu go east,” he pointed to the left, “I’ll head west and we’ll see if we can catch any stragglers.” “Hey!” his yell caught the major up short just as she was dragging the reins across her horse’s neck. “Make sure they know you’re there! Don’t want any trigger-happy kids thinking you two are the skirka’s reinforcements.”_

_Control snapped over Jack’s nerves like a pilot’s HUD display, slowing his breathing, sending blood into his cramped and aching legs, steadying his hands. Combat mode. Now that he knew that Daniel was safe and that Teal’c was there to hold back the headstrong Enapay and his band of idiots, it was time for the Colonel. This was just another battle, he told himself. Another kill-or-die moment on an alien world with his team at his back. They could do this. He slipped the strap of the rifle sling from his horse’s neck and slid it over his head, the stock of the shotgun settling straight up between his shoulder-blades. P90 in his right hand, Jack tugged his toes out of his stirrups and leaned into the saddle as he nudged his mount into a slow walk._

_He slipped off his horse but walked close beside it, keeping it between him and the closest fire as they eased through the open area between Hall and barn. He heard the loud bang of a flintlock and then a growling shriek that seemed to scrape the skin off the back of his neck. The rattle of a P90 told him that Carter had arrived and the shriek cut-off mid-cry into silence. “Atta girl,” Jack whispered._

_His radio crackled on his shoulder. “Jack? Listen, I can see you heading across the clearing and –"_

_Jack grimaced and flicked off the sound. As grateful as he was to hear Daniel’s voice, Wanna had neglected to snatch his earwig when she’d loaded up his horse back in The City. And he sure didn’t want to give away his position to whatever animals might be looking for some revenge on the humans that had invaded their territory and then had the nerve to fight back when they were mauled to death. He’d apologize to Daniel later._

_Too late. Before Jack had gone another yard a snarling growl erupted from the Hall behind him. He smacked his horse on the rump, but it hadn’t needed any incentive to get moving. The skirka that launched itself from the roof of the Hall was a huge black mass, long forelegs stretched out to each side as if to give Jack a big, deadly hug. He danced backwards and sent round after round into the thing, but its powerful leap carried it forward fast – too fast – and Jack jerked to the left, letting the carcass fall where he’d been standing a moment before. One claw side-swiped him on the way past, tearing the sleeve of his jacket from shoulder to elbow and leaving a neat gouge in his skin._

_“These things are too smart for their own good,” Jack murmured, his gaze lifting quickly from the unmoving creature to the darkness that huddled around the Hall. “Just like a cat to wait at the mouse hole to see what comes out.” He waited through fifty quick beats of his heart until he was sure there weren’t any more coming after him from that direction. “Thanks for the almost warning, Danny.” Yep. Even when Jack was hurrying to shut him up, Daniel was watching his back._

_Time to get to the others. It was as Jack turned, moving out between two of the larger carcasses that he heard the thud and squeak of a door opening behind him._

_“Jack! No!”_

_He didn’t have time to throw a curse over his shoulder, to remind his teammate to keep those kids safe behind closed doors, as the lump of deep black that he’d assumed was another dead cow rose up from the ground, lifting a mass of snarling white teeth and a surge of fetid breath into Jack’s face._

_The P90 spat without Jack’s conscious command, tearing new holes into the skirka’s already bloody chest. Rage kept it moving, rage and pain and the instinctual need to eliminate this threat to its pack. Its legs gave out even as it lunged forward, teeth bared and snapping open and shut once, twice, three times, forcing Jack to jerk backward, trying to keep his body out of reach. His heel caught on the other dead cat, unbalancing him, and he toppled backwards, hitting hard on his right hip and elbow, his weapon slapped out of his hand by the impact, tearing away from his vest. He stared, breathing stopped, waiting for the pain as the cat’s teeth connected._

_They didn’t. The skirka died, exhaling a mist of stinking drool and blood, its nose still questing in Jack’s direction. Its muzzle landing solidly on his right boot._

_Running footsteps behind him stopped short. More than one set. Jack couldn’t tear his eyes from the animal’s last few breaths, from the gleam of murder dying in its red eyes._

_“Dammit, Jack! I was trying to warn you!” Daniel thunked to his knees at Jack’s side, sidearm still pointed at the dead animal. “Why didn’t you just listen to me for once? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”_

_Jack could barely hear the anxious, bitter, scared-shitless words over the pounding of his own blood. “Didn’t I tell you to stay put? I’m fine, now get your ass back inside with those…”_

_Over Daniel’s shoulder a curly blond head turned back and forth, eyes wide and staring at the two dead beasts. Of course. Iye. Daniel’s shadow. Looked like the kid hadn’t changed much since the homesteaders had set out. “He should not be out here.” What the hell was Daniel thinking?_

_“Yes, well, short of tying him down,” Daniel muttered, yanking on Jack’s pant leg to get his foot out from under the skirka’s teeth. “The cats play dead, Jack. They killed two of Enapay’s fighters that way this afternoon.”_

_“I got that,” Jack replied lightly, hitching onto his butt and twisting, preparing to rise. He batted at Daniel’s hands. “Get your eyes on the horizon, Daniel. And off of me. There’s still a threat out here.”_

_“Good idea,” Daniel shifted, pressing upward, his head up, scanning the outer darkness. “I don’t believe for a moment that Enapay and Teal’c have all the rest of them boxed in. They’re too smart for that.”_

_“Daniel!”_

_A wiry figure crashed into Jack's back and his arms buckled, sending him back onto his butt. The kid was shouting, pointing. Silhouetted against the blaze not twenty yards away was a mammoth shape, tufted ears upright, facing them._

_“My weapon,” Jack hissed, feeling for his P90 in the dirt. He couldn’t take his eyes off the thing, the rippling muscles under the shaggy coat, the low, chuffing growl. Daniel was concentrating on the kid, on Iye, pushing him behind his back, telling him to go, to take off, but there was no sound of footsteps running away, just some scrabbling in the dust behind them._

_Out of the corner of his eye, Jack watched Daniel raise his Beretta, arm steady, feet planted firmly. Daniel was a damn good shot when he needed to be. But Jack would feel a whole helluva lot better with a full clip on full auto between them and that thing. He bent forward slowly, trying not to provoke the skirka to attack or to ruin Daniel’s concentration. His weapon was right there. Just a long arm’s reach away._

_Behind him, the kid gasped, his fear radiating out in waves that could practically knock them over. Jack could feel it – the tension rising in the darkness beyond the firelight. He’d felt it before. The sure and certain, pit of the stomach, hairs on the back of his neck feeling of being watched. And he didn’t mean by the massive animal in front of them. There was another one out there. At least one. Maybe more._

Jack’s voice died away, his hands pressed flat onto the steel table so hard that his fingers were bone white. He drew in one slow breath and then another, uncramping his fingers, feeling the life flow back into them in a painful rush. He cleared his throat and found Major Davis had placed a glass of water on his left. 

“That’s when it happened,” Jack said. Taking up the glass with a nod to the other man, he swallowed past the lump of burning coal in his throat. 

Davis waited a moment before he spoke. “What happened, Colonel?” His voice was soft. Almost gentle. 

Jack forced out the words. “I lunged forward to grab my weapon just as Daniel fired. I saw the animal go down and wrenched myself around to find the other one.” He sketched the movements in the water ring on the table, pinpointing Daniel’s position, the wounded skirka, and his own. “I saw it about ten yards out and closing. I yelled at Daniel to get down, to move so I could fire. I didn’t –" he rubbed one hand across his lips. “I didn’t even feel it happen. Didn’t know until I saw the kid standing there in the shadows, shaking from head to foot. He’d – Iye had grabbed the shotgun from the sling on my back and was aiming it at the other animal behind Daniel’s back.” Jack’s fingers moved, leaving smears across the clean steel. Fingerprints. Stains. They should be bright red with Daniel’s blood.

“So, when Daniel obeyed your orders, when he dropped back to give you a clean shot –"

The sound of the shotgun echoed like a sonic boom in Jack’s memory. The smell of gunpowder, of fresh, hot blood, ripped through his senses. Daniel’s scream and Iye’s shriek of horror tangled together to claw at his heart.

“The kid shot him. Caught him just as Daniel was turning. Blew away –" Daniel’s sight. His life. His future. Their friendship. A blond curly head, the spray of Daniel’s blood like freckles across his face. Memory leaked into another scene. Another blond head. Blood. Gunpowder. “The kid shot Daniel with my gun.”

Davis stayed silent until Jack managed to lift his head, to look him in the eye. “Is that it? You and the boys back in DC need anything else?”

“As a matter of fact, Colonel, yes.” 

Davis touched the knot in his tie, his smooth actions suddenly awkward, his face pale. Jack’s lips tightened. Hearing about the attack, about the details of Daniel’s injury – this guy, no matter his smooth DC manner, was Daniel’s friend. This couldn’t be particularly easy for Davis to hear.

“There are,” the major took a steadying breath, “there are a few more details I’ve been instructed to ask you about. For instance, how did the attack end? You are the only member of SG-1 able to report on the outcome of the defense against the skirka.”

What a stilted, unemotional, completely useless phrase. ‘The outcome of the defense against the skirka.’ "It wasn’t a strategy. A battle plan. It was a bloodbath." An unholy ruination. But, that was okay. Jack got it. Those kinds of words, of phrasing, kept you outside the horror. 

Jack straightened from his slouch over the table. “Inyu,” he stated, calm and focused. “Before I could – Daniel had fallen –" he cleared his throat, struggling not to get pulled back into the memory, to keep this final part of his report as clean and precise as Davis’ questions. “He came out of the darkness behind the beast, a knife in each hand, and jumped on the thing’s back.” Jack gestured with both arms, bringing them down quickly. “Slit the thing’s throat smooth as silk.” So much damned blood. Jack hadn’t known what was Daniel’s and what was the cat’s. He refused the shudder that tried to make its way up his spine. 

“Behind the barn, Teal’c blasted the last few with his staff once Carter got the homesteaders out of range. The two of them rode the perimeter with Nayati and Enapay while Inyu and Teal’c’s teenagers made their way among the carcasses, checking for any more sleepers.” Jack knocked on the table as if to put a period at the end of that sentence. “Next?”

“And what happened to the boy? To Iye?”

“The kid was in shock. Dropped the shotgun and then dropped right next to it, shaking and screaming.” Almost as loud as Daniel. The kid was pure white under the speckled blood. Horrified. Retching up his guts even as he begged Daniel’s forgiveness over and over again. “Wanna finally took him in hand. Got him the heck out of there.”

“You found all this out later, I assume?”

Jack squinted at the other man. “Why do you say that?”

Davis slid the file in front of him to the left and lifted another one onto the table. Thicker. Red sticker on the front leaping out at both of them. Jack’s muscles stiffened. Red badge of courage, the military called it. An indicator that the report within this folder came from a team member injured on the mission. The only one it could be was …

“Doctor Jackson’s report states that, from the moment of his injury, you were with him. That your face above him, your voice speaking to him, your hands on his face and chest were the things that helped him hold on, helped him deal with the pain and the fear. You never left his side to see to the clean-up. To give orders for the hunting bands to follow the skirka's tracks the next morning and make sure there would be no further attacks. To organize the flatbed that carried the two of you back to the Stargate and to Doctor Frasier.” Davis spread one hand on top of the closed folder as if he could absorb the contents through his pores. “Doctor Jackson believes that your dedicated presence at his side made all the difference in his survival.”

“No. No.” Head shaking, Jack pushed the demanding images away. Daniel clutching his sleeves, his hands, reaching out desperately until he could see Jack. Carter’s shaking hands had applied the bandages, and after that it was touch, sound that Daniel needed. Jack had leaned away from him a couple of times to vomit up the little he was able to choke down when the homesteaders brought him food and water, but he’d been back, holding onto Daniel as soon as he’d wiped his mouth. “I didn’t – the guy was out of it half the time anyway –"

“He remembers, Colonel.”

Jack kept shaking his head, anger uncoiling from the place he’d trapped it so he could give his report. Last report he’d ever have to give. “What the hell do you care, Davis? Adding some spice for the Pentagon? Gotta dig a little deeper, make sure O’Neill realizes how his best friend –" he choked on the words, biting them in half, “how Daniel was so screwed up that he never realized the guy he was holding onto was the one that had done the damage? Hurt him?” God, he’d hurt him.

The door behind Davis opened and the major made to rise from his chair.

“As you were," Hammond said.


	15. Chapter 15

Hammond stepped inside and closed the door quietly behind him. Jack frowned, glancing up toward the observation window. All he could see was Carter’s bowed head, hands over her face, her shoulders shaking. The anger coursing through Jack slowed, cooled, and dropped away, leaving him empty. He slumped in his chair. “Sir?”

The general walked forward and reached out to flip the switch on the recorder. He opened the tape slot, pulled a cartridge from his pocket and stuck it inside.

“Wait –“ Jack’s mind caught up to the action. Hadn’t there been a tape in there to record Jack’s testimony? Every damning word?

“Jack, before I answer your questions, I want you to hear something. As your commanding officer, I’m ordering you to listen. But,” Hammond leaned forward and pressed one hand to Jack’s shoulder, “as your friend, I’m begging you to listen. To stop those wheels in your head from turning and really listen.”

All Jack could do is nod. He didn’t understand. Didn’t understand much of any of this. This certainly wasn’t turning out like he expected it to.

“Would you like me to leave, General?”

Hammond sent a quick glance in Davis’ direction. “Stay, Major. You’ve done an excellent job keeping your head clear and I’m going to ask you to do that, to play devil’s advocate just a little longer. Believe me, I know it hasn’t been easy.”

Davis lifted his chin. “Whatever you need, sir.”

“Very good.” The general turned back to Jack. “Ready to listen, son? To hear what the man on this tape is trying to say? What we’ve all been trying to say to you since this terrible situation started?”

“I – yes, sir.” Jack eyed the tape recorder as if it was another wounded cat, lying in wait.

“Good.” Hammond set his finger on the play button and then paused. “This is from the oral report given to me from Doctor Jackson two weeks after his injury.” 

Before Jack could bail, run out of the room with his hands over his ears, Hammond pressed the button.

“Tell me, Doctor Jackson. Who do you hold responsible for your injuries?” Hammond on the tape sounded tired. Exhausted. “Off the record. Just between you and me.”

Daniel coughed, covering up a laugh. Jack had heard that same sound too many times to count. He found himself leaning forward, waiting for Daniel’s answer. Waiting for the honesty.

“Blame isn’t something I’m very quick to assign, General. Not because of some high-minded philosophy, but because, upon reflection, so many of the problems in my life have ended up being my own damn fault.”

Jack could hear the lingering pain. The slight ribbon of fear, of anxiety that accompanied Daniel during each and every second of this new life. Life as a blind man. But he heard something else, too. Beyond the weariness. Outside the horrible self-knowledge of his ruined life. Daniel sounded … peaceful.

“I can honestly say that this, this injury, was an accident, sir. Just looking at all of the decisions made by every person involved, by me, by Jack, by Enapay and his people, by Iye and the other settlers, even back to assigning this mission to a team that was filled with people sick to death of each other’s company…”

The tape moved on silently as if Daniel had waited for some denial from the General. None came.

“… Believe me when I tell you I’ve had plenty of time to replay every action, every word backwards and forwards. The infirmary is not a very exciting place, especially when you can’t pass the time reading, or when your friends’ visits are awkward and hesitant. So I’ve had a lot of time to think. To trace each decision back and consider what would have happened if I’d done something differently. If I’d stayed in The City. If we’d all stayed together. And I've come to realize that it wouldn't have mattered one bit. SG-1 would have responded immediately to a call for help from the homesteaders.”

“Maybe we should blame Nayati and Inyu for not scoping out the new homestead area adequately, taking care to burn out all of the skirka nests. Did you hear that Doctor Rogers in zoology believes that the animals were genetic constructs abandoned on this world by the Ancients?” Metal against metal chimed and Jack imagined Daniel trying to get comfortable on the narrow infirmary bed. “Sorry. It’s interesting. I thought they were too intelligent and strategic to be pure animal. Anyway, sorry.”

Jack smiled at his friend’s unquenchable curiosity. Amazing.

“I could blame Enapay for being the explorer and hunter that he is, intent on protecting his people with his life. Or Iye’s mother for letting the curious boy follow me around, leaving me as his ‘sitter’ while she organized the new community. Except that I sort of enjoyed it. Poor kid. Did my message to him make it through the Stargate? I don’t want him to worry, or blame himself."

“Yes, son. I made sure of it.” The Hammond on the tape was patient with Daniel’s little jaunts down his rabbit trails. Patient. Compassionate. Jack’s heart twisted in his chest, tears all of a sudden swarming his eyes. Wish I could have been there, he thought. Gotten over myself and been there for Daniel, like Hammond. Just another reason the general would always be the bigger man.

Daniel’s voice went on. “Good. Thank you. So, blame. If Jack had had his earwig, he would have heard my warning, but,” Daniel added quickly, “knowing myself, I would have gone out to help him anyway. It’s become a habit with SG-1. We watch each other’s back.”

“Who was watching your back, Doctor Jackson?”

Yeah, that was the question, Jack nodded.

A chair creaked and Jack realized Daniel hadn’t answered. Hammond must have leaned forward. “Are you all right, son? Okay to go on?”

“Yes, yes, of course. I guess, I’m just surprised by the question, sir. Who was watching my back? They all were. Jack. Sam. Teal’c. They came as soon as we called. Went above and beyond to get to my side. They did everything they could do to protect the settlers, to combat the threat, and, frankly, sir, so did I. As a part of SG-1 for four years, I’m as responsible as any of my teammates for my own safety as well as theirs. You might as well ask who was watching Sam’s back all alone at the Relay Station, or Teal’c’s as he traveled the countryside to reach the young men and women he worked with. Or, and this is the vital thing for all of us to remember, sir, who was watching Jack’s back as he met with the Headman of The City? Who was helping him with cultural indicators and possible connections to Earth mythology? If any one of us abandoned our responsibilities on this mission, it was me, sir. Because of tension. Because of some awkward moments between me and a teammate. And, for that, I am truly sorry.”

Jack’s head was shaking back and forth. He met Hammond’s eyes across the table and forced himself to stillness. Listening. He would listen. But he didn’t have to like it.

“I know some people who would have a lot of trouble with you apologizing for this, son. Looking at you there, in that bed, with those bandages on your face and the negative prognosis given by your doctors… well."

“Sir. General Hammond. I don’t like it any more than you do. But I think being on this side of the bandages – of the darkness – is allowing me to see this situation as it truly is. You, all of you, Teal’c and Sam and especially Jack, you can only see this.” A subtle sound. Cotton sheets brushing against hospital scrubs as Daniel motioned to his face. “I remember. Before this black muffler somebody wrapped around my head, I remember. Those last few minutes of sight are remarkably clear. I remember Iye panicking in the face of what he must have thought was certain death. Of his hands grabbing the gun from Jack’s back, shaking so hard he couldn’t have hit a target if he’d been aiming for it. I remember the blast. The red haze of pain. The skirka’s teeth gleaming in the firelight. But, most of all, I remember my friend’s face. His hands. How he was right there. How he was the solid rock that held onto me. If I had to have a ‘last sighted memory,’ if it couldn’t be my Sha’re’s face, I’m glad it was Jack’s.”

Hammond turned his face away as he shut off the recorder. Jack didn’t have the luxury. This time, he let the sorrow come. He didn’t change it into anger, or blame, or despair, didn’t turn it into inward blades that would tear at his soul. This time, he didn’t think of himself first. He thought of Daniel. Of his friend. And he grieved.

Daniel was a full-fledged member of SG-1. Not a tag-along. Not someone to be coddled and guarded. Not a – not a child. No matter how many times Jack or Hammond or some other military-minded fool tried to put Daniel Jackson into some kind of playpen for geeks and civilians behind the lines where it was ‘safe,’ Daniel wouldn’t stay there. He couldn’t stay there. Daniel was all grown up.

He’d grown up hard and he’d grown up fast, facing demons wearing his loved-ones’ faces. Learning weapons and strategies, when to attack and when to retreat. He’d said it to Hammond, had tried to tell Jack over the past eight months over and over again. Daniel was a member of SG-1. That meant that Jack couldn’t claim Daniel as his kid. His charge. His innocent. To accept Daniel on his own terms meant accepting him as a teammate in every respect. A friend. A brother. Not a child. Not … Charlie.

Hammond sighed. “There is no inquiry from Washington, Jack. Major Davis is here at my request, on a personal matter that will never leave this room. Your teammates were reluctant to put you through this, but I had no other recourse. It was my Hail Mary play. I wanted my team back, damn it. I wanted SG-1 back. And I wanted my second-in-command. So, damn it all,” Hammond’s voice shook along with his head as he stared at Jack, “can you get past this, Jack, and be the officer – the friend – that you’ve always been?”

Jack heard his own words said to a post-traumatic Daniel hunched in a too-big flight suit. “I’ll never forgive myself. But sometimes I can forget. Sometimes.”

Jack rubbed hard at his face, wishing he could erase his attitude of the past eight months with one pep-talk from George Hammond and a little ass-whupping via Pentagon Paul. Punishment would have been easier. Court Martial. Prison. Anything. Anything that would put him far away from the sight of Daniel's scars, the muddy orbs that used to be piercing blue eyes, the minute after minute, day after day reality check slamming him in the gut whenever Daniel walked into the room. Anything but facing his wounded best friend every single day of his life. Because this? This he'd never be able to forget.

Finally, he looked up. “I can try, General.” For Daniel. For Hammond. He could do it. “I can try.”

“Damn straight you will,” Hammond growled.

After a moment, Davis let out a huge breath and slumped in his chair, one hand tugging his perfect tie askew. “Well, thank God for that. If this hadn’t worked, I don’t think Daniel would have ever forgiven me.”

"Oh," Jack felt the smile tease against his lips, "I think you'll find Daniel is a pretty forgiving person, Major." He met the man's eyes across the table once again. Solid. Dependable. Maybe he could see a little of what his teammate talked about. "You planning to hang around and poke me every time my head gets twisted all up in this? Cause, that sounds … awful. For both of us."

Hammond held up both hands. “I don’t expect miracles, Colonel. But I do expect a pretty steep learning curve on your part.”

“Yes, sir.” He’d opened his mouth to ask for permission to change, to get back into his BDUs, maybe check in with Daniel and Teal’c, when the door opened after a perfunctory knock.

“General Hammond. Sorry to interrupt –"

Carter had pulled herself together yet again. She flung a sharp nod Jack’s way before turning to Hammond.

“Major?”

“Major Godwin just checked in from Durria. It seems that Teal’c is asking for Colonel O’Neill.” She raised a slip of paper and glanced down at it, eyebrows rising. “The actual message is, ‘send O’Neill at once. His presence is needed for Daniel Jackson’s well-being.’”

Jack shot to his feet. “Well, that sounds nothing at all like a portent of something horrible,” he managed, moving quickly for the door. “General?”

Hammond straightened, looking proud and stern and a little worried. “SG-1, you have a go.”

“About time,” Carter muttered as she hurried after Jack.


	16. Chapter 16

Weapons in hand, Jack and Carter moved apart to cover as much of the landscape as two could, moving in precise timing as soon as boots hit the ground. Jack's nerves were on alert, but the warning bells were low and slow, keeping him sharp without the immediate rush of adrenaline that would have greeted an obvious threat. His finger aside the trigger guard, he narrowed his eyes at the forest, at the empty landscape. He was ready – hell, he was always ready for the worst when he came through the 'gate – but somewhere deep down he knew he wasn't going to need to fire.

"Not much visibility in this forest, sir," Carter stated quietly.

Jack could only nod, his gaze moving, roaming, settling on a hint of shadow, seeking any trace of movement in the thick undergrowth. Training defined his movements, years of facing unimaginable weirdness on the other side of a wormhole ride through the galaxy. What happened back on base? Yeah, it was still there. Still bubbling in his gut and whirling behind his eyeballs. But this was here and now and his team in trouble. One mission. One goal. And, look at that: one clear path led from the Stargate and DHD, one narrow lane to lead the unsuspecting into a possible trap. That was not a yellow brick road. But Jack's instincts weren't screaming and he relaxed his aim, letting the muzzle of his weapon fall a few degrees.

They made a full circle, coming back to stand at the edge of the stone platform, Jack facing the DHD and a certain leader of SG-11 who'd watched their whole performance without a word. Carter stood at his elbow, covering the stagnant landscape behind them.

Not stagnant. Still. The stillness of the Durrian landscape drew Jack up short. Before he'd adjusted his cap, before he'd bellowed out any orders or demanded to see his teammates, Jack stopped and listened to the silence. The unnatural calm of the world around him. It was eerie. Weird. As if the whole planet was holding its breath. 

The thick forest on every side, green and growing, should be alive with sound – animals, bugs, birds – and with movement. He felt the warm breeze against his cheek, but not one branch swayed, not one leaf fluttered in the golden sunlight. No clouds appeared overhead to chase across the sky, just a bright, uniform blue stretching from treetop to treetop in the small open glade around the Stargate. His mind stuttered as another touch of air brought him familiar smells of autumn – of wet leaves and mud puddles and just a hint of char in the air, like the lingering scent of a campfire.

It smelled like … home. Camping in the Minnesota wild. Fishing trips with his dad. Team vacations where the most threatening pests were the mosquitoes by the lake. The surrounding quiet settled into Jack's gut, as if whatever cosmic hand had smoothed across the planet, whatever had shushed it, like you would do to a pet, reached right into Jack's still gurgling gut and did the same to him.

After Jack's little talk with Hammond, after he'd listened to Daniel's voice speaking from the recorder, Jack hadn't had much time to think. To 'process,' as the shrinks would say. No, the next crisis had shown up right on time to channel his confusion into a call to action, to send all the bubbling guilt and the turmoil of his thoughts into plans and strategies for getting to his teammates. He'd left the interrogation room yanking his whirling thoughts to bump and rattle behind him like a kid's wooden pull-toy that had lost a wheel. Now, in the crystal clear light of the alien sun, with the world around him muffled, some force made Jack stop, take a mental step backward, and let the next moment take shape.

Major Godwin stood front and center at the DHD, arms folded across his chest, vest and sidearm missing, and his expression dark and ominous. No floral headgear, no smiles, and, more importantly, no teammates.

Jack tilted his head, taking in Godwin's motionless posture. Huh. "Report, Major." He didn't really expect an answer.

Good thing. Godwin didn't blink. Didn't move. Not one twitch of muscle met Jack's demand. The same unnatural stillness seemed to have taken hold of Godwin and put him in the same kind of stasis as the landscape. Jack watched as the man's chest did not rise and fall. "Carter?"

At his word Carter stowed her weapon and reached for the hand-held scanner she'd started to bring on missions. A kind of mini-UAV, sensors set to distinguish electronic signals, energy readings, and, hell, magnetism for all Jack knew. Yeah, well, unless it had some extra doodads that registered weird-ass alien shenanigans, he doubted if she'd get anything useful.

"Nothing unusual, sir. Nothing SG-11 didn't report on their first inspection. Definitely nothing to explain any of … this."

"Yeah, I figured," Jack breathed. Only when Carter had put away her toys and grabbed her weapon again did Jack reach for his radio. "SG-1-niner to SG-1. Teal'c, Daniel, report."

He waited.

"Say again, SG-1-niner to SG-1. Teal'c, report, right the hell now, please," he added pleasantly.

Yeah, that went well.

He waited. Silent and steady he waited. Just like this world seemed to be waiting. For something. For someone? He shook his head. Damned if he knew, but standing here doing nothing was not gonna get Daniel and Teal'c out of whatever jam they'd found themselves in. And yet…

Jack tightened his grip on his weapon for a second and then stowed it against his chest. The heck with this. Whatever – whoever – was infecting this world with a case of the mellows was way more powerful than a few copper jacketed bullets. He lifted his head. "Okay, whoever's out there. You sent for Jack O'Neill? Well, here he is. And he'd really like to talk to his teammates." Not to mention stop talking about himself the third person. "I'm here. I'm waiting. But, unless you show yourselves, or take me to the rest of my men, I'm out of here." He pointed at a random spot in the forest. "And that will be your fault."

He sensed Carter's restlessness beside him. She didn't want to go. Like him, she'd rather light out through the woods, guns-a-blazing, and find their teammates as quick as they could. Jack had no idea if she was effected by the stillness like he was, and she didn't know if he was serious or bluffing, either. With the obvious power of these Durrians on display, he couldn't exactly clue her in.

"Fine." Jack gestured towards the DHD. "Carter – dial us up."

Carter didn't hesitate. "Yes, sir." She stepped off the platform, still on alert.

The little round guy with the crown of flowers that appeared right in front of her stopped her cold.

"You are so quick to judgment, Jack. You would abandon your friends so quickly? This is not at all what Daniel has told us about you, Jack."

Jack didn't flinch. "Oh, but you were the ones who invited us to this party. So don't blame me if your guests get a little impatient when you don't show," he countered, "Now, you want to tell me what this is all about?"

"You are quick to lay the fault of your trials at someone's feet, as well. That is the second time you have spoken of blame. Of fault. You are quick to assign these things to yourself and others." The man nodded. "That is something else Daniel has taught us."

Jack looked the man over carefully. Unthreatening. That's exactly how he would describe him. As if he had been molded out of clay for that very reaction. "That's my job," Jack answered easily, with no resentment or hostility, "to make judgments and keep my people out of trouble. All my people." He watched the man before him take in his words and weigh them carefully. This wasn't posturing – the Durrian really wanted to know them, to understand.

"Are we trouble to you, Jack?" Something glittered in the man's eyes. 

"Well, there's trouble and then there's trouble." Jack folded his arms on his weapon. "You've done something to Major Godwin there." He nodded towards the motionless leader of SG-11. "That tells me you're powerful. And you're keeping me from my team. That tells me that you're up to something." He smiled, lips tight. "And that bothers me."

"Ah." The man straightened, his expression turning solemn. "That much is true. We also act to protect. To keep safe."

Jack nodded. "Just like us."

The man tilted his head. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. Ours is a simpler life. We sense. We speak. We act." He opened his folded hands and gestured widely. "We hasten love. Slow hurt. Seek healing. For many centuries we have kept our own counsel, kept ourselves hidden. Spoken simply to those who have found us."

"That sounds –" Sam started. She glanced back at Jack, eyebrows raised.

"Familiar?" Jack added.

"I was going to say lovely," Sam turned back towards the alien. 

The man looked at his teammate with a big smile. "You are also lovely, Sam. Heart and mind and soul." 

"You know my name."

"Of course! You are Sam and," he lifted a hand towards Jack, "you are Jack. And I am Xidamus." He bowed, hand flat against his chest.

Standing between Jack and the alien, Carter did that little head-tilt thing that she did when she'd either figured something out or couldn't possibly believe what she was seeing. "Daniel told you about us?"

That made sense. Daniel would tell people – possible allies – about his friends Jack and Sam, not about Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter.

"He did indeed. We have learned much from him. He has a very open heart." Xidamus patted his own chest.

"Uh-huh." Jack squinted one eye, considering. "Our other friend, Teal'c. He sent word that Daniel needed us. Is he okay?"

"Teal'c? Well," Xidamus linked his hands across his ample belly and rocked back on his bare feet, "he is much less of an enigma to us than you are, Jack. A Jaffa warrior with a tender soul. Something we have rarely seen in such an oppressed and enslaved race."

"I'm an enigma?" Jack huffed out a frustrated breath. "Hey, I'm about the least enigmatic guy you'll ever meet. Teal'c's got all that," he waved his hand in the air, "Jaffa soul-deep philosophical mumbo-jumbo going on. Compared to him, I'm a sheet of glass. Very clean glass."

Xidamus laughed. "Never has a man hidden his heart with such complete success behind as fragile a barrier. Glass is clear, yes, but, set at the perfect angle it can catch the light and blind the viewer to what lies behind it."

Squinting, Jack glanced towards Carter and found a half-smile on her face before she smoothed it away into benign readiness. "So, Axel … Axis … can we get this show on the road? Take me to your leader and all that?" Even though he wasn't getting a threatening vibe from the guy, that didn't mean Jack wanted to spend all day trading quips with him.

"Xidamus. As you well know." The round little man straightened, arms at his sides. "Jack. I would ask that you trust me. Trust us. Put worries about your own safety and doubt aside to come to the aid of he you call friend."

"Hey, if it was just me, I'd gladly trade myself for Daniel's safety. But I've got SG-11, Teal'c, and Carter here to think about. I'm just as responsible for them, you know."

The man blinked, his attention drawn inward for a moment. "Oh. I see. Your obligation reaches far further than we imagined," he finally stated. "It is a heavy burden to bear, to be charged with others' well-being. Is it not?"

The spark of an idea dodged Jack's hold, hovering just out of reach. "Ye-es," he tried.

"Our leaders once struggled with such notions. They conferred, seeking to act in concert for the greater good of many peoples on many worlds. It was a crushing weight to consider all wounds, all injuries caused by our enemies to be their fault, as you would say. Such responsibility, such self-incurred duty maimed their spirits until they no longer seemed a part of us. They were as alien as you and your kind, Jack." Xidamus took a step towards him. "But I know I will not win your confidence with my words."

Jack listened. It all sounded familiar, like a history lesson he'd never been paying much attention to when he heard it the first time. "Not likely," he sighed.

"And if I managed to convince you that these others, Diana and the major and captain, and your lady there," and damned if the guy didn't smile real big and aim another courtly bow in Carter's direction, "were safe, would you then come to your friend's aid?"

Jack's mind reeled as he tried to parse everything the guy said, everything he'd learned about Durria in the past week, the cram session he'd just put in while he geared up, and now this. "That would be nice," he stated. "Still unlikely, but nice."

The fat man laughed. "I am very nice then, Jack." 

The stillness broke like an eggshell, sounds and movements turning on all at once. A large bird took off from a nearby tree with a frantic beat of wings. Leaves flipped back and forth in the gentle breeze. Beside the DHD, Godwin opened his eyes wide and took a hesitant step backwards.

"Where did –" He caught himself, straightened his back, and let his hands fall to his sides. "Colonel O'Neill. Major Carter. I just now finished sending Teal'c's message through the 'gate."

Jack waved the man to silence and waited. Without another sound Leoni and Williams appeared next to their teammate, Williams shoving what looked like half a mango into his mouth. Alive? Check. Healthy? Check. Happy? Check. Armed? That would be a no.

"Captain, report," Jack ordered.

Williams' gaze darted around the clearing as he chewed and chewed and swallowed, nearly choking himself. "Colonel? What? Um, we were just sitting in the village, sir. Waiting for Doctor Jackson and Teal'c to finish their meeting with…" The airman finally laid eyes on Xidamus standing smugly on the sidelines. "With him," he pointed. The captain snapped to attention. "No excuse, sir."

Every soldier's best defense, Jack thought to himself. "At ease, Captain. Doctor?"

Leoni tucked her greying blond hair behind one ear. "We'd just returned from the Noasi, Colonel. The ruins atop the hill by the village. Alceis had asked us to bring some of the smaller statuary down so that Daniel could take a look, err, examine it."

"Your people," Xidamus said, "whole and well, Jack."

Jack pushed out his lips, considering. "What about Teal'c?"

Xidamus did that 'internal listening' thing again. "Teal'c would rather remain with Daniel. He is rather insistent."

Stubborn. "That sounds like Teal'c." Jack did a rapid threat assessment. It was time. Past time. "Let's move along then, campers." He trotted down the steps to stand beside Xidamus and Carter. "Godwin, get your team back to the SGC. Tell them SG-1 is meeting with the Durrians and will report in within three hours." He twisted to look the alien in the eye. "That sound good to you, Xid?"

"Very fine, Jack. Although you may wish to stay longer."

"We will cross that bridge when we come to it," he murmured. "Get gone, Major."

"Yes, sir." Godwin didn't seem too pleased about the idea, but, thank God, knew better than to argue with a superior officer in front of a possible threat.

Carter, Xidamus and Jack waited while Godwin dialed, sent his IDC, received confirmation, and stepped through the Stargate. When the wormhole disengaged, Xidamus raised both arms as if to embrace them and suddenly Jack was somewhere else. Somewhere more than familiar. Standing amidst a double ring of rough huts were a group of small, twig and flower adorned aliens, Teal'c, and Daniel. Something tight in Jack's chest loosened.

"Fancy meeting you guys here," Jack said, hands digging deep into his pockets. "It's been a while."

Antaeus of the Nox nodded, his face as stern and unfriendly as ever. "It has, Colonel. It has."


	17. Chapter 17

Daniel stood at the edge of the village with his head bowed and his heart racing. He didn't want to think, to feel, to react to the changes that had overwhelmed him during the few hours he'd spent on the alien planet. He wanted to go – to stay – to lose himself in study or his journals or – he pressed his hands against his throbbing temples. He didn't know what he wanted.

A warm breeze brushed against his skin like a mother's caress, a whisper of comfort made up of the shiver of leaves and the song of birds following along after. The world – the forest – something reached out to him, trying to enfold him within its arms. To shelter him. Daniel shook his head, his thoughts spinning out of its reach.

So much had happened in so little time. His meltdown with Teal'c, when the reality of his new stunted life drowned out everything else. His meeting with Xidamus and Alceis and the realization of who they were, and what power they had at their fingertips. Invisibility. Transposition. Healing. And then he'd been forced to remember the events on Ledaro. He snorted. Remember was too simple a concept for what the two aliens had done. Trapped in darkness, Daniel had been drawn to a bright red light that had grown and expanded until he found himself kneeling in the dirt beside Jack, Iye behind him and two snarling, rabid beasts about to attack. He had been there, right back where it had all begun, watching from behind his own seeing eyes as it happened all over again. But, this time, the battle, the gunshot, the pain - it had all been accompanied by Jack's voice, a narrative monologue as if his friend and teammate were doing an emotional, guilt-laden, voice-over.

Finally, Alceis had tightened her hand on Daniel's knee and lifted them out of the memory to sit once again within their hut on Durria.

"I'm sorry, Daniel. I hope you'll forgive me my haste." She'd brushed the backs of her fingers along his cheek. "We needed to understand."

"It's okay," he'd panted, trying to dredge some kind of self-control out of his emotional wreckage. "I understand."

"I do not."

Teal'c's growl had been as angry and intimidating as Daniel had ever heard it. He'd demanded answers. Explanations. Daniel hadn't had any.

Now, a few hours later, he waited. Hands clenched tight enough to ache, Daniel stood in the darkness, his unwelcome thoughts erupting in sudden, painful shards that cut his attempts at inner calm into ribbons.

All he could think about- what kept his mind spinning and his heart beating too hard in his chest, was how this might have all been different if he could see.

When the tablets had been sent through the Stargate and he saw the language preserved there, surely he would have known. He would have recognized it as one of the languages carved on the walls of Heliopolis, the meeting place of the four great races that allied against the Goa'uld. If he could have seen the MALP videos, would he have picked up the clues? If he had been in his usual spot at Jack's side in the control room, could he have greeted the Durrians as Nox? As allies and friends?

If he hadn't been blind, would it have mattered?

"Your thoughts scatter like light in a shallow pool." Alceis touched his fingers and then slid her small hand into his. "Put off your wondering. You are here in the now, with us. Is it not enough?"

Daniel's smile was tentative. "I'll try. But I'm not very good at now. I'm much better with then."

She leaned against his side. "Daniel. My heart is sore with grief. I am sorry that you lived your pain once again, at our hands. I hope, in the then that is our future, we can make such amends that the memory dwindles. That it becomes as mine has, like a dream of another time, another life, that does not burn as a fire in your soul, but as a distant star in the night sky." 

He squeezed her fingers. "I hope so, too," he whispered, his emotions too close to the surface, "but I haven't seen the stars in … in a while."

On his other side, Teal'c shifted. Restless. Probably still a little angry at the Nox's manipulations. After the memories had released him, Daniel could only listen as his teammate surged to his feet, threatening Phax with immediate injury if he didn't explain what had happened. Even though Daniel couldn't see Teal'c's face, he could fill in the blanks. Apparently, the young man had held Teal'c in some kind of stasis while Alceis and Xidamus probed Daniel's memory. Talk about setting off each and every one of the Jaffa's protective instincts: Teal'c had to watch, helplessly, as the man he had sworn to protect was injured. Again. Daniel was pretty sure his teammate didn't believe his repeated assurances that he was okay. Yeah, probably because he … wasn't.

"How did you know, Daniel Jackson?" His teammate's words were still a little too hurried, snapped off with a little too much force. "I also spent time with the Nox on their world, and stood beside you in the chamber with Ernest Littlefield. Yet I did not see."

His head still bowed, Daniel turned towards his teammate. "It was something about the forest, Teal'c. That was my first clue. I remember standing in the rain with Opher, watching him listen to the sounds all around us, touching the rough bark of an ancient tree as if he was in communion with nature." He shrugged. "I feel the same kind of awareness here. A feeling of waiting, of watching. That plus the lines and curves of the language gave me a nudge in the right direction."

Alceis laughed. "And you knew our names."

Daniel smiled down at the forest floor. "Yes. In the mythology of a land called Greece on our world, there was a demi-god named Antaeus. He was the son of Poseidon and Gaia – water and earth. While he was in contact with his mother, the earth, he was unbeatable in combat. He won many challenges, many battles, until, finally, Hercules learned his secret, lifted him from the earth, and killed him."

"Antaeus was the name of the other male Nox."

"Yes." Daniel nodded, then flinched at the growing pain. "Antaeus, Opher, and Lya. And Nefrayu, of course." He flinched again at a cool touch on his brow.

"Shh," Alceis urged, "peace. Let me help you."

Daniel dropped his shoulders and sighed and the small woman took this for assent. Her fingers spread across his forehead and then drew together and away as if she was plucking something from his skin. The pain eased, lessening to a constant ache barely discernable at the edge of his exhaustion.

"Thank you."

"It is little enough," she murmured. A rustle of leaves announced her movement to Daniel's right. "As Daniel said, my name also appears in his world's tales. Antaeus had a daughter named Alceis. He promised her hand in marriage to the man who could defeat all others. Not in a footrace, as Daniel told you, but in a contest of strength of will. My Xidamus – Alexidamus – outlasted many others through nights and days of debate, even my father. We had loved each other long before, of course, and I had no doubts of his victory."

"What subject of debate?" Teal'c asked.

Alceis hesitated. "Whether or not our actions, our opposition to the Goa'uld, had changed the very nature of the Nox. Had diminished us. And whether or not our children would grow to become more and more warriors and less and less beings of peace and light."

"Is that when you and your mate left the Nox home world?"

She placed her hand on Daniel's arm. "We could no longer stay. We had lost too much of ourselves already. And when our mother died at Heru-ur's hand," the sorrow in her voice was nearly overwhelming, "many of us sought our peace far from the arrogance of my father."

"So that's what changed them." Daniel thought back to the anger that simmered beneath Antaeus' every word. He remembered the insistence of all of the Nox that SG-1 not raise a hand against Apophis and his Jaffa, even after Lya had been wounded and Nefrayu killed. But Antaeus did not appear to be a being devoted to peace. His anger wasn't aimed at SG-1, but, perhaps at his own inability to help. To fight. Lya and Opher had been more open, more at ease within themselves. Content. Antaeus was anything but content.

"Perhaps," Alceis replied. "Perhaps they came to see, in time, that violence does not lead to peace. That withdrawal was all that could keep the Nox as we were called to be." Her sigh barely touched the air. "I would like to believe that Alexidamus and I had something to do with that. He did send Phax, my brother, to us after a time."

Words caught in Daniel's throat. Explanations of how much the Goa'uld had taken, lives and families and entire cultures destroyed at their hands because people as powerful as the Nox had withdrawn from the fight. Sha're. Skaara. Jolinar. Thousands of Tok'ra. Teal'c and Ry'ac forever changed, their family gone. So many more over the centuries. He closed his eyes, too tired to speak, to try, to give his arguments life. If his words couldn't even move Antaeus, the most warlike of all the Nox, what hope was there with Alceis and her kind?

"And so you leave others, men and women who have no access to power like yours, as sacrifices to your serenity."

Daniel's head snapped up. "Teal'c-"

"You run away, desert an entire galaxy to the horrors of slavery and torture and death, to ease your consciences." Bitter contempt colored Teal'c's words, as if these people were utterly bereft of honor. "You close your eyes to others' pain – that is not the mark of wisdom. Of perception. Of higher calling."

Alceis' hand on Daniel's arm didn't tremble. "So Phax has reminded us. He is his father's son."

"Perhaps, to truly be Nox, the Nox of the future and not the past, we must make room in our thinking for both."

Daniel turned at the sound of a familiar voice, Teal'c steadying him with a broad hand on his back as his feet tangled with a gnarled root. "Lya?"

The light, melodic voice drifted easily across the breeze. "It is I, Daniel. Teal'c. Much has changed since we last met under the Tollan sun." She paused. "Alceis. Sister-daughter."

"Lya." Alceis' hand left Daniel's arm and her voice took on a deep tone of respect and longing. "I have missed you."

"And I, you."

"Thank you for coming at our call."

"You had only to speak my name and I would have been at your side." Lya's voice was nearer – it came from right in front of Daniel with no hint of the tiny woman's movement. A hand spread across his chest. "Daniel. I am sorry."

"For what?" he managed to choke out.

"For many things. But for your pain most of all." Tingling warmth spread from her open hand to his chest, his arms, and all along his muscles. "You who understood us the most, who grew in knowledge and wisdom even as we watched, have borne much loss. Had we responded when your people dialed our Stargate, we could, perhaps, have spared you."

The warmth turned to an icy blade that twisted in Daniel's chest. Too late. Too late. The hope he'd tried to ignore, the surge of anticipation that he'd refused to acknowledge fell screaming into darkness. When he'd realized that Alceis and her people were Nox, that hope had erupted, sending life-giving tendrils out into every nerve. They could heal him. They could brush away the darkness and let in the light.

It wasn't the hope that was the problem, it was the removal of that hope that might destroy him.

Too late. The words resounded in his head, echoed through his soul. Beat in a two-step rhythm that jangled with the clanging cymbals in his head. His pain doubled, tripled, until his neck bent under the weight of the dark future stretching out before him. The physical pain was nothing compared with an unlooked for miracle suddenly taken away.

Teal'c's broad hand moved from his back, rose to spread across the back of Daniel's neck. "My brother." His heart and soul were packed into those two words.

"Daniel." Lya moved closer, one hand still against his chest, the other touching trembling fingers to his cheek. "You and Teal'c and all your people have been precious friends to the Nox, to the Tollan, to many others in a frightening galaxy. Believe in us, for just a little while longer. Believe that we mean only your welfare, only your good. In our own ways, for purposes unimagined by you who have stepped across the Stargate's threshold such few times." Her light touch grazed the puckered skin beneath his eyes and settled Daniel's soul-deep ache back behind his sternum, stopping the wave of grief so that it couldn't drown him. "Believe," she whispered.

The tramp of boots on twig and dried leaf resolved into familiar sounds, welcome voices, and Daniel managed to raise his head as others moved into the center of the village.

"Teal'c. Daniel." Jack. Called from the SGC by Major Godwin at the Durrian's request. He sounded normal. Calm. A slight tang of worry riding just beneath the surface. "I see you've made some new friends. As usual."

It took Daniel more than a few seconds to realize what was missing. It was the anger. The bleak emptiness of Jack's disregard. It sounded like… "Jack?" 

"Daniel?"

It sounded like Jack O'Neill. SG-1's team leader. Daniel's best friend. It sounded … wonderful.

Daniel took a step forward, nearly bowling over the small Nox woman. "You okay?"

"Uh, yeah. Shouldn't I be asking you that?" A snort. The sound of hands moving restlessly against cloth, metal. "I've been safely back at the SGC, having a long talk with a couple of friends and getting things … removed from certain … orifices … while you and T here have been having all the fun."

"There has been little 'fun,' O'Neill. But I am pleased to see that your orifices are now clear of obstructions."

"That's for sure," murmured Sam.

"Okay, back to business," Jack grumbled. A loud smack caught Daniel off-guard and he flinched. "Let's get this show on the road."

"What show?" Daniel frowned, the relief of his team's presence – his whole team, entire and well again, it seemed – was tangling with his pain and despair, the exhaustion of too many emotions slapping him back and forth until he couldn't find his footing. His head swiveled from side to side as if he could catch a glimpse of something, a hint about what was happening.

"The Nox are grateful to be reunited with our lost family. And we have you to thank, Daniel."

Antaeus. The leader of the Nox and Alceis' father. "Uh, you're welcome." Maybe this is what Lya wanted him to believe in? That if the Nox could reunite their own long-lost family, then putting SG-1 back together was surely possible. He let that sink in, let it settle behind his useless eyes, soothe the pounding in his head. That … that would be worth it. He stood a little taller. "Thank you for bringing Jack and Sam here. For," he swallowed, a sudden surge of joy blowing away his despair, "reuniting our family, too."

"Come," Antaeus ordered. Lya took one of Daniel's hands and Alceis took the other, the two women drawing him forward. Eyebrows rising, Daniel turned to speak over his shoulder. "Uh, guys?"

"It's okay, Daniel." Jack's voice came from just over his right shoulder. "We're here."

"Indeed."

"Oh, wow." Sam's sudden exclamation was quiet. Profound.

Daniel felt the warmth first, against the skin of his face, his hands. Then he heard the crackle of flame, smelled the smoke, and a heady, definitely alien fragrance as the wood burned. The Nox women led him around the fire, keeping it to his right, and Daniel sensed the air close around him, as if they were moving through a crowd of people. Finally, Lya touched his hand to a flat platform just below the level of his hip. He felt along its length, moved both hands to trace out the smooth wooden poles that had been lashed together. Over this was piled something softer. Grass? Leaves? He couldn't tell. It felt like a bier. A bed.

His heart started pounding.

"Jack. You will stand here, between us." 

That was Antaeus again; ordering people around seemed to be his thing. But Daniel couldn't imagine – he didn't want to think, not again –

"Yeah, hang on." At his back, Jack was moving, his hands on Daniel's upper arms, easing him towards the platform. "It's okay. You remember how this goes. Just take a seat here."

"But, Jack – are you – Lya said…"

"I asked you to believe, Daniel."

He closed his mouth, locked his jaw against all the questions that wanted to leap out into the air. Jack turned him so that the two were facing each other, squeezed his arms once, and then leaned in. "It's been a crappy year, Daniel. Belief can be hard to come by." One more squeeze. "I'm gonna have to ask you to trust me on this one."

Daniel latched onto Jack's wrists and the shiver of apology and sorrow in his friend's voice. His roiling thoughts stilled. "I can do that," he breathed, smiling.

"Good. That's real good," Jack replied. "Just hang on a little longer."

It was Daniel's turn to squeeze Jack's arm in reassurance. He hitched up on the soft bedding and let his friend lower his shoulders. Teal'c retrieved his vest on the way down. Sam's fingers brushed his cheek and slid his sunglasses from his face. Fully reclined, Daniel felt held, his body nestled in the Nox bed, his spirit cradled in the comforting presence of his friends. 

Antaeus spoke again. "The Nox once joined with others in open battle against those who would kill and enslave. We used the power and knowledge gained over many millennia, power and knowledge of the earth, of nature, of the forces that guide and guard life against death, the defenseless against the mighty, the light against the dark."

That waiting awareness that Daniel had sensed in the forest rose up around him again. His skin tingled, the hairs standing straight up as power built with every word. 

"Some of us, in our best intentions to shelter those who had no strength to stand, became arrogant. We changed. I changed," Antaeus stated, his voice gaining that tone of harsh self-blame that Daniel had heard too much of in Jack's for too long. "I became convinced that I had the right and the responsibility to bear the weight of all actions and injuries. To make myself the conscience and the god of others' well-being. I became less than Nox." 

Daniel wished he could see. To put Antaeus' words into the context of his actions. Eyes open wide, he did all that he could – he listened, felt the stirrings of the air, and, somehow, touched the edges of the mingled sorrow and joy that radiated from Alceis and Antaeus and all of the Nox around him.

"Now the Nox are wiser. Older. The children taught their elders well. And we share that knowledge and use such power as we can to hide the strengthless from their foes. To shelter the ignorant from those who would enslave them. And to heal the injured." Antaeus' voice shaded up the scale as if he had turned his head away from Daniel. "Though we do not attack, nor make weapons with which to fight, Teal'c, we will work as our natures command us." He sighed. "And we despair for those lost to us because of our own arrogance."

A dull tapping sound at the edge of the bier distracted him. 

"Is that my cue?" Jack murmured, as if he knew Daniel was following Antaeus' ritual much more easily than he was.

Ah, that explained the tapping. Jack's restless fingers. Daniel managed a half-shrug and a confused expression.

"Jack O'Neill."

"Dang. Busted." Movement. Boots in the dirt. "Ah, present," Jack stated out loud.

"Please come take your place between us."

Daniel listened to the shuffling feet, trying to parse where his friends were standing, and to paint in the colors of the Nox, the forest, himself on the bed with the fire warming his left side. But the powerful force of this planet, of the forest or the Nox or some combination of the two was overwhelming. It muffled his hearing, laid against his skin like a thick blanket. He blinked, at the edge of sleep.

"You have heard our intentions. Our promises to each other and to the waiting universe. Before we proceed, we must hear from you, Jack O'Neill. You must speak your heart into being. Into reality. Only then can life's power help you to heal the injuries of your own arrogance."

"I, um," Jack cleared his throat. 

Daniel ached for his reserved friend. He wished he could spare him, again, but the surging awareness held him quiet and still.

"I screwed up. My friend got hurt."

The long silence was finally ended by a different voice.

"You are responsible for this? You hurt your friend? Purposefully?" Phax. Abrupt and impatient. His father's son.

"Well, no. I'd never –"

"And so your arrogance rivals my father's own," the youth stated. "Did you not hear him? What have you truly, of your own power and in your own strength, done to your friend, Jack O'Neill?"

The awareness rippled, boiled. It sank into Daniel, into his mind, his heart, as if asking the same question. Nothing, Daniel answered silently. Jack was not responsible.

"I pushed him away. I ignored him. Worse," Jack replied evenly, "I let my own guilt keep me from doing everything – from doing anything – to help him. To remind him that I'm his friend."

Daniel closed his eyes. He didn't want to hear this. He didn't need to hear Jack's broken confession. The soul of the forest disagreed, enhancing his senses, forcing Daniel to touch the inner parts of himself that had been hurt by Jack's anger and guilt. The grief of his greatest loss – of his friend, not his sight – opened within him like a black hole. 

"Yes," Lya answered. "Just as my brother did when his wife was killed and when his daughter led others into exile. You closed off your spirit and hid."

"I did."

A hum of sound from dozens of throats rose, in perfect harmony with the rising power. "And now?" asked Antaeus.

"Now I'll be there, right beside him, blind, seeing, or whatever. I'm his friend. If he'll have me."

The hum became a song of joy, men, women and children singing together, sending warmth and light to scour Daniel, body and soul. He breathed deep, sorrow and grief and pain falling away. It lasted a moment – a day – a lifetime, leaving him rested and calm. Sunlight warmed his face. A breeze tangled in his hair. A bird sang back the Nox's song.

"Open your eyes, Daniel," Lya said, her voice echoing from throughout creation.

He didn't. He couldn't. What if – what if – 

"Hey." One callused hand cupped Daniel's cheek. "C'mon. You can do this."

Tears filled Daniel's eyes and he couldn't help but blink. Blink against the pooling tears. Against the brilliant sunlight. He caught his breath and blinked at the sight of Jack's pale, exhausted, hugely smiling face.

"Jack?" he mouthed, no sound making it through the lump in his throat.

"There you are." Jack seemed to be having trouble swallowing something, too. "There you are. I missed that blue glare of yours."

"Blue?" The force of Sam's arrival nearly knocked Jack out of sight. "Oh, Daniel. Thank God." Yep, she was crying, too.

From up over his head, Teal'c's scowl appeared, upside down. "Can you see me, Daniel Jackson?"

"Yeah. Yes," Daniel nodded. "I can. I can." He tried to turn his head, to find Lya and Antaeus and the other Nox. To gush out his thanks, his promise to do anything, to –

"Hey," Jack tried again, his touch on Daniel's cheek a little firmer. "They need some time to talk. To … heal."

"Just like we do?"

"Just like we do."


	18. Epilogue

"So it turns out I can be an arrogant SOB."

Daniel dragged his gaze from the moonlight-silvered leaves, the dazzling reflection off the gentle river, clouds like streamers across the plum-colored sky. Jack had one foot on a stump, elbow on his knee. The other hand was plying a broken stem that trailed dried, curling leaves.

"You're in pretty good company," Daniel replied. "Didn't you once tell me I'm far too sure of myself for my own good?"

Jack's eyes crinkled at the edges. "Sounds familiar."

"And," Daniel added, sitting up and hugging his knees to his chest, "if the old and wise Nox aren't beyond a little arrogance." He shrugged.

Leaves crackled between Jack's fingers. "What did Antaeus say? 'I made myself the conscience and the god of others' well-being.'"

Daniel's smile came easily. "You do tend to shoulder the weight of the world. Of the universe."

"Pot – kettle."

Daniel watched the shadow of a night bird as it flew high over the water and then followed its course into the sky. Jack was hyper-responsible. It was part of his nature, his character. He didn't put himself above others, but he was 'the colonel' down to his bones. And when that commander mindset was combined with his shattered need to be a father to his team, his 'kids,' there was a perfect storm of guilt and blame. "This time, though. This time –" Daniel shook his head. 

"Yeah. This time it … got away from me."

Long legs stretched out beside Daniel, and a strong shoulder leaned against his.

"How's your head?"

Daniel nearly choked on his laughter. "The pain is gone. Just – gone. As if it never existed. But the confusion, that might be here to stay."

"I hear you on that," Jack sighed.

Behind them, through the trees, the Nox were celebrating. Singing. Dancing. Eating and drinking. After making sure of Daniel's healing, the team had joined them. Teal'c had thanked the Nox with embarrassing and repetitive intensity, Sam had taken to drowning her emotional reaction in the local fermented grains. Jack … hovered. Subtle as a thrown brick, he'd lingered at the edge of Daniel's sight, watching him from beneath shadowed brows. Whether it was his friend's scrutiny or the sheer tonnage of visual stimulation after so long in the dark, Daniel had wandered to the firelight's edge and drifted away.

Sam wasn't the only one who had been overwhelmed.

"Did you know?" The question had a life of its own, barreling out from between Daniel's lips before he realized.

"Know what?"

He kept his gaze – _his gaze_ – on the horizon. "Did you know they were the Nox? That they might heal me?" It was the last question – the last issue that laid like a lead weight in Daniel's gut. "Was that why you were okay? Over the guilt and the anger? Because you knew I'd be okay?

Jack's hand on his shoulder turned Daniel to face him. "No. No, Daniel. That's not what happened here."

Daniel watched the shadows curl and settle beneath Jack's eyes, hiding the man's expression. "Really?"

"Really." Jack shook him, obviously trying to press his honesty home. "Back at the base, Hammond and Davis had my number but good. They made me see and hear the truth. Some of it straight from your mouth, actually." His smile flashed quickly in the darkness. "By the time Carter and I got word to come here, I'd got it. Saw I needed to get my head out of my ass. Apologize. Among other things."

"So their terrible idea worked?" Daniel tried to laugh it off, shove the emotional crap to the side so he and Jack could get back to their usual shallow banter. This time it was damned hard work.

"Strangely enough, yes. Hammond pulled out all the stops. Opened my eyes but good."

"He's a good man," Daniel managed. "So's Paul."

"Yeah, yeah," Jack gave him one more shake and let go, "I admit it. Pentagon Paul has some balls."

"I've been trying to tell you that for years." Daniel turned back towards the water, happy, for once, for the lowering night. Happy for so many things. His best friend was by his side, no longer angry, no longer pushing Daniel away. The team was reunited. Oh, and he could see. Only a few days ago he was considering surgery to remove his eyes. It was the miracle he'd been wishing for. But, something was still missing. 

"So, as I was saying, I was an SOB. Big, huge SOB."

Daniel lowered his head, resting his chin on his bent knees.

Jack didn't wait long for a response. Daniel's usual denial. A friendly hand-wave that made everything right between them again.

"Something happened out there, on Ledaro. Maybe before that. We were so due a break, a win, a mission where everything didn't go straight to hell."

"I was so tired," Daniel murmured.

"Yeah, we all were. And deep down, I knew we shouldn't be there. We should have handed that mission off to a long-term R&D team and gone home. Spent some time apart. Focused on the friend thing."

Daniel turned his head. "The 'friend' thing?"

"Beer. Barbecue. Actual talking," Jack replied. "On Earth. Where we sorta know the language and are only a phone call away from 9-1-1."

Shrugging, Daniel cushioned his cheek on his hand. "It was nice there. On Ledaro. But denial – ignoring the issues - never seems to work for us."

"Comes back to bite us. Literally, this time." Jack shifted on the hard ground. "The blood. The smell of gunpowder. The look on that kid's face." He coughed. "All those things ripped open a wound that'll never heal. And, for some reason, all I could see was Charlie."

Daniel nodded. Yes. "You didn't see me at all."

"Nope." Jack spit the word out with bitter regret. "My kid. My boy had died because I was too sloppy with my weapon. Because I let him out of my sight. And you –"

After a long moment, Daniel spoke. "I'm not a child, Jack." Gently. Sorrowfully. "I'm not Charlie."

"Yeah," Jack breathed. "I got that. Listening to your report to Hammond, to what you said about the team, about our responsibilities to each other." Fingers plucked at the soil between them, finding rocks and shells to sift. "Turned out I'd been blind, too."

In the silence that grew between them, Daniel heard the fading sounds of the Nox, the low hum of music echoed by every tree, every rock all around them. It felt pleased, content, like a big purring kitten of a world, the vibrations going bone-deep and soothing Daniel's spirit. He closed his eyes and breathed it in.

"I understand guilt, Jack. You know that. We both hold on to it a little too tight. Let ourselves get trapped in a kind of swamp of blame until it takes too much effort to escape." He opened his eyes and raised his head, spearing his friend with his gaze. "It's friendship that can give us a hand, help lead us out." He swallowed. "Your friendship did that for me."

The veil of cloud across the moon disappeared, sending a bright beam to illuminate Jack's face. Dark eyes stared back at Daniel, candid and direct. "I wish I'd been there for you this time."

Daniel smiled. "Me, too. And I wish you'd have let me be there for you, too."

Jack's answering smile was fleeting. "Yeah." Frowning, he nodded. "I'm gonna do better. As your team leader and as your friend. You haven't been a kid – a clueless civilian – for a long time." He rose, grimacing as his knee clicked loudly in the quiet night. He held a hand down to Daniel. "Deal?"

Reaching for his friend's hand, Daniel tilted his head. "Does this mean you're going to listen to me? Let me tell you about ancient civilizations and theories and philosophies? Let me in on some of your warrior-to-warrior dates with Teal'c?" He let Jack pull him up beside him. "Plan strategies with you and the general?"

Jack grabbed Daniel close for a quick hug, low laughter rumbling through them both. He leaned back and ruffled Daniel's short hair. "You wish, Doctor Jackson." He cocked his head and sent Daniel a grin. "What do you say we go rescue the Nox from Carter's inebriated singing?"

Daniel fell in just behind Jack's right shoulder, his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, sure, you betcha."

At the edge of the trees, Daniel took one more look over his shoulder at the serene landscape. The dark water rippled, sending the reflection of moon and stars dancing. Daniel raised his eyes to the heavens in time to see a streak of light cross, west to east, above his head. "Star light, star bright," he murmured. Turning back to the forest, to the firelight and the gathered friends – old and new – Daniel touched one hand to a slender tree and reached deep inside.

"Thank you," he voiced silently. The planet's consciousness rose to cradle him one more time, a warm breeze brushing his cheek. "Thank you."

Above him the sky was filled with stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for taking this ride with me. I hope you'll let me know your comments.


End file.
